When the law protects obvious criminals

We have this TV-show that interviews people who have been scammed, and they always manage to find the criminal, but the fact nothing really happens afterwards is astonishing.

You have all these victims, you caught the guy on camera running away from you like a pussy, so why isn't the police doing anything? Whenever the narrator explains they had the same guy on camera a year ago, or that he's been doing this for 18 years because the court keeps letting him go, I think to myself: Then what's even the point?

Crime pays.