Okay okay, hear me out here. I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of people but what if...
When you commit a crime, you just get outlawed. If the scent that made you outlawed is collected by another player, then you become red-handed.
This seems to make a lot more sense to me imho. If literally nobody is on your trail, I don't see why the perpetrator would be unable to fast travel home.
If the argument is "Well, what if the murderer/thief is too well defended?", that's just power scaling for you. We could also make sieges easier, as it stands it's kind of a pain to wait all day for a wrecking ball to dry just so you can break into an abandoned claim.
I think wanted posters would be helpful too. Nothing too complex, just let players "copy" a scent onto a wanted poster that can be posted onto trees or walls, or maybe just set down as a standalone object. Any player can roll up to a posted wanted poster and collect a scent from it, and the poster would remain for as long as the original scent exists. Would encourage teamwork I think.