As a police officer I get to deal with this on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis. Sadly there will never be enough of us to completely saturate and cover any city entirely. For instance, my city is aprox. 10.4 square miles, dead center between Dallas and Fort Worth with two major 3-4 lane highways running through. We usually have 6-8 officers covering a population of roughly 50,000 people, a number that swells greatly during the work week. At any given time 2-3 (if not more) of those officers are occupied on calls. If a major call goes out like a serious wreck, barricaded person, robbery, etc. all of us may get tied up for a while.
So when in the midst of all the thefts, domestic disputes, assaults, etc...we don't always seem very sympathetic when we go to the vehicle burglary where someone left their GPS unit, laptop, packages full of x-mas goodies, purse, wallet, MONEY-BAG, checkbook, etc. fully visible in their car. So now when some jerkoff smashes the window and steals the property, we've got yet another report to take up our time. And it's usually something that could be easily avoided, which is frustrating.
I would estimate that 90% or so of our vehicle burglaries are window smashed gps taken, window smashed laptop missing, etc.
Should we be able to leave ten grand sitting on the front seat with the doors wide open and noone mess with it? Yes we should, but we don't live in that world yet. It ticks us off as much as the victims.
Now, something I tell all my victims and any other citizen that asks is that the best way to not be a victim is to make your car less attractive to a burglar than the car parked next to yours.
Take any electronics, gps, cellphones, detachable radio faceplates, computers, etc. and the power cords or mounting equipment (we get a lot where thieves break in because they see the mounting equipment and logically assume that you hid the gps or other stuff in the center console or under the seat).
Any packages should go in the trunk after purchase and to be really safe you should leave the parking lot and come back to a new parking space, rather than just secure the car then walk into another store. The thieves watch for this and know you'll probably be in the nexxt store for a while so they have plenty of time to pop the trunk for that flat screen you just paid $500.00 for.
While we're on that, when you get a new computer, flatscreen etc.....break the box down and put it in a trash bag or something, not just sitting on your curb for the garbage man. Plenty of home burglaries occur because the thieves cruise around and look for the houses with new fancy gadget boxes, then wait till they know the residents are probably away or at work or something.
Sorry for the long post. This has been my public service anouncement. Be safe, and happy hunting.
I will only get worse in the future , so beware .... ! 
