Well I'm glad that I don't have to worry about you flying over from Boston and breaking into my car. Nor do I sit around pondering if I should smash and grab things from other peoples' cars just because I know there's effectively zero risk I'd get caught or suffer any significant consequences if caught.Interesting fact. Status of a criminal offense has never changed my behavior. Seems like a PhD dissertation topic.
But even without a PhD dissertation I would imagine that's not how people who break into cars think. It absolutely is true out here though that the local police departments will not bother to take any investigative action on vehicle break-ins or vandalism in the SF Bay Area.
Once I had security footage from a local school showing someone keying my previous car in SF. The detective was nice enough to return a phone call, but simply said because this is a misdemeanor and a non-violent one at that, unless I can provide the name and address of the person in the video, they will not be taking any investigative action at all. And even then they could not promise they'd follow up on it.