Long post, but from a UK police point of view..
When a crime gets reports to the police they use a process similar to Threat/Harm/Risk to determine if they need to deploy a cop to the scene/victim. Problem is for the larger forces - at any given point in time there are probably a hundred crimes that have previously been reported to them that are in the queue for an officer to visit. Only those crimes that carry the highest risk will ever get an officer to visit them, and even then maybe not immediately. Most cops are already allocated to an incident with further incidents stacked up for them to attend as soon as they become free. The only thing that breaks this chain is if a serious incident occurs where their is serious risk of harm coming to someone.
Think of it like this.... all the cops in the area you live are tied up with incidents when you get your iPhone snatched out of your hand, you ring 999/101 telling them your phone has been stolen and the thief has ridden off at speed and is now out of sight. Using the Threat, Harm Risk matrix the police will consider the following..
Threat - phone stolen
Harm - financial loss & minor injury
Risk - The financial loss and injury has occurred but as the thief is now gone there is no further or future risk of harm to anyone. Deploying a cop to the scene doesn't achiever anything other than making the victim feel a bit better. CCTV can be checked later.
Result - no deployment of any officer to the scene/victim
Now lets say you report a crime where the Threat, Harm, Risk is more severe - you're at work and can see your home CCTV on your phone and someone is trying to steal your car from your driveway. The threat/harm/risk is more severe as its happening now and by deploying an officer they can maybe stop the theft and catch the thief. Great, looks like you're getting cop sent to your home. Only all the cops are tied up with similar risk incidents or incidents that carry a greater risk. So a decision has to be made whether to get a cop that is already dealing with a victim to immediately divert to your home.
Lets now say that they have diverted a cop, who's current victim is now not happy as the cop they had been waiting patiently for has now just left them and driven off. But whilst they are driving to your home the city centre CCTV team have seen someone walking into a McDonald's carrying a sword. Now apply the threat/harm/risk matrix and think of how you'd deal with that. Do you let the cop carry on driving to the thief trying to steal a car? Or do you divert them to McDonald's? Yes you have guessed correctly, they get diverted to McDonald's as well as a few other cops who also get diverted.
When the cops get to McDonald's they discover it is a cardboard sword as the guy carrying it is going to a fancy dress party and stopped off for a burger. So now you have a few cops that have become free, well err, no! They have to go back to the victims they were diverted from.
Throughout all this time more and more incidents have been reported to the police who have applied the threat/harm/risk matrix to decide who gets a cop sent to them, and who doesn't.
So basically if you're a victim of crime and aren't badly injured, with no great risk of harm and with the offender having left the scene then so you are no longer under immediate risk of harm, so you aren't getting a cop sent to you straight away or anytime soon. You may be towards the top of the queue to get a cop to come to you, but as more and more incidents get reported that carry a higher risk than yours then you slip further and further down the queue, and will never see a cop, though one might phone you a few days later to consider if there are any lines of enquiry such as CCTV to check etc.
Any tracking locations for stolen phones are inaccurate and little use to the police. If your phone is tracking to a house in a housing estate then in reality the phone could be next door, or three housed down the road, or in a house across the road, or on the move. Unfortunately it's impractical for the police to visit a dozen houses and ask on the doorstep if there's a stolen phone in their house. The police can't enter a house to search under those circumstances. Imagine you're sat at home with your family eating you evening meal and the police kick your door down because a stolen phone is tracking to your house, but unbeknown to anyone the phone is 3 houses away, or even further away. Are you just going to say "It's OK officers, we understand, no hard feelings" whilst you comfort your children who are screaming hysterically in fear?
