A WAGGA police “shock and awe” campaign aimed at targeting youth criminals during the school holidays could be extended until Christmas.
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According to an article published in The Daily Advertiser this week, the highly successful Operation Assure is being conducted for the second time this year, “after literally stopping ‘kiddie crims’ in their tracks on Wagga’s streets throughout February”.
The DA reported: “Operation Assure has been in swing since Wednesday last week and has already netted a reduction in residential home break-ins, the program’s coordinator Detective Sergeant Ryan Sheaff said.”
“Detective Sergeant Sheaff said while it was only slated to run for five weeks, he was looking at extending the operation past school holidays and through the rest of the year,” it read.
The article also reported that the latest figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics showed Wagga had a home break-in rate three times higher than the rest of the state from June 2015 to June 2016.
The city also ranked seventh in NSW for stealing from a vehicle or unsecured dwelling for that 12-month period.
Wagga police are to be commended for their efforts to tackle youth crime.
It’s a vexing issue that doesn’t always fit neatly into an operational pigeonhole.
The reasons young people commit crimes are often as varied as the kids themselves.
So while we’re commending the police for cracking down on offenders, kudos also needs to go to blokes like Kade Passlow.
Mr Passlow, an auto-electrician, has received more than 50 applications after offering a job and training that was open to any applicants, regardless of their past.
By Tuesday, Mr Passlow had conducted nine job interviews and was weighing up the option of offering a two-week training program which would provide young people with both work experience and a reference, valuable tools for job hunters starting to climb the rungs of their future careers.
As Megan Mulrooney, the chief executive of Wagga employment specialist Compact, told the DA this week, “there is a huge number of young people in our region right at our back door who are underemployed or make bad decisions or may not have seen anyone in their family work in their life”.
How often have we heard the stories about some self-made businessperson who admits to a rough childhood and some bad decision-making?
And how often do we hear that what turned this person away from a life of bad decisions and into success was someone who figuratively grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and shook some sense into them?
No, it doesn’t help every troubled kid, but sometimes all that is needed is a mentor who is willing to hand out hope, trust and some tough love.
Just as our community needs hard-working police officers conducting activities like Operation Assure, we need people like Kade Passlow – people who are willing to go out of their way to extend the hand of hope and help to some kids who may be standing at a crossroads.
Mr Passlow cannot help everyone, but it is entirely possible he could make a big difference to a young person who needs a chance.
For being willing to put himself out there to lend a hand, he deserves the recognition and thanks of the wider community which sometimes struggles to help troubled kids.