ADDITIONAL police from neighbouring areas will form part of a new operation tackling Wagga’s youth crime epidemic.
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Triggered by community frustration, Wagga police launched a collaborative project, Operation Assure, on Friday to help curb the city’s unprecedented crime spike.
The operation will see Wagga general duties, detectives, crime management and highway patrol officers team up with police from both neighbouring and specialist commands.
They will be tasked around Wagga during “high-crime times” at known hot spots.
“The basic precept of this operation will be intensive targeting of young offenders that are known to be recidivist offenders within city (and) targeting crime hot spots, but also working with stakeholders to try provide support to people that are trying to keep young people out of trouble,” Wagga Superintendent Bob Noble said.
Operation Assure will be carried out for several months and in collaboration with coalface workers, including Juvenile Justice, Education Department and Family and Community Services, to help rehabilitate offenders and their families.
“I think we all realise we need a whole of community approach to this and we’re not simply going to arrest our way out of this,” Superintendent Noble said.
“I can say to young people who want to offend, they really have only one option and that is to rehabilitate and if they don’t rehabilitate, they will be driven either from this community or into incarceration – make no mistake.”
The operation follows revelations a car is stolen and two homes are broken into nearly every night in Wagga, placing the city as the state’s worst for rising vehicle theft.
Police say young offenders are responsible for the bulk of crime, while victims continue to blast the courts for letting them off “with a slap on the wrist”.
Wagga MP Daryl Maguire went into bat for the epidemic that is making victims of too many good people, appealing to the state government for more resources.