What crimes should government actively prosecute?

It might sound like a strange question but considering that some legal systems effectively have legislative statures that, in theory, prohibits something while in practice they aren't enforced even in "slam dunk" cases i find it a really important to ask: what crimes should public prosecutors actively prosecute?

My impression is that there are, broadly speaking, two types of crimes:

• Public crimes in which someone does something and they can be indicted in a court of law even though the victim doesn't want to. There might not even be a victim or plaintiffs but they are indicted by a public prosecutor on behalf of the public (or rather, on behalf of the legislators) anyways.
• Private Crimes in which someone who feels they have directly or indirectly been harmed or otherwise suffered negatively from someones criminal actions. In comparison the former crime it's up to the victim(s) or their guardian/next of kin/etc to file charges in a court of law. They may receive help or advice from the public prosecutor or other public bodies but that's not necessarily true. If the plaintiff doesn't want to charge/indict them, for whatever reason they may have, nothing else happens.

The exact terminology and formalities depend heavily of what legal system one talks about but those are the two general types of crimes i have seen.

When it comes to the current Swedish legal system, which i have most knowledge about, the far majority of legal statures are (by default) considered to lie under "allmänt åtal" (public prosecution). That means if police come to suspect that someone has committed a crime they are generally legally obligated to formally start a förundersökning (preliminary investigation) and investigate the alleged crime(s) and whether or not someone has acted in a way that requisites of a crime are fulfilled and they can be convicted.

Unless the preliminary investigation is discontinued, which can happen for many reasons including that he police is more or less certain that someone hasn't committed a crime, the investigation at some-point deemed complete and at that point it's up to a public prosecutor to decide whether or not there's enough evidence of guilt (and comparatively less evidence that points towards someones innocence) that they can expect them to be convicted in court. If they think there's enough evidence there are somethings that can happen:

• They ask the suspect if they want to receive a strafföreläggande (summary punishment) which is a fine. If they accept then they aren't indicted and thus avoid ending up in court but they are considered "convicted" in their criminal records as if they were convicted. This is generally done when someones alleged criminal actions are unlikely to get them anything but a fine and/or suspended sentence. If they don't want to receive a summary punishment then...
• They get indicted in a court of law. This is the standard course of action for all "serious" crimes that could result in a prison sentence or cases where the crime(s) don't have well established sentencing guidelines.
• The public prosecutor decides that they shouldn't prosecute and gives a åtalsunderlåtelse (waiver of prosecution) which means that someone isn't prosecuted for a crime even-though they consider it more or less obvious that they would be convicted in court. This is most often done when someone is convicted of a serious crime and being convicted of this other crime wouldn't change their prison sentence. For example someone recently convicted of murder will not be charged with drug crimes unless that convicted would significantly add to their current sentence. Other situations when it's given is when the suspect is a minor and they are likely guilty of a petty crime like shop lifting. It's still added to their criminal record as if they had been convicted. Other reasons is that if the suspect is dying or otherwise mentally incapable, then they might also not want to charge them.

In the end the prosecutors ability to not prosecute someone for their alleged crimes is, formally, quite limited. There are no plea-bargains and a "guilty plea" is more or less nothing but evidence. Of course this is just in theory and in practice it's not uncommon for police to ignore reporting certain petty crimes, such as drug users, if they might become unwilling to speak and associate with the police or hospitals and such in the future.

In general i think that's a good thing because it means unpopular/ineffective laws need to be modified or completely scrapped instead of still being there de-jure but de-facto being ignored which easily leads to arbitrary use of such laws to arrest people. A great example is sodomy and other gay-sex crimes. Often gay sex wasn't completely legalized first thing but rather there was a period where it went from "it's illegal but if you keep quite" and where people didn't report it to the police unless it was controversial or with a minor, to where it was completely removed from the law books.

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