Five days after thieves clambered through a back window and ransacked her Fernleigh Road unit, the Ashmont mum is still deeply shaken, her mind oscillating between anger and despair.

During the break-in, her young son’s Xbox and laptop, among other things, were taken.

He’d received them as presents for his birthday and Christmas.

How do you explain to a young boy that another human being stole presents from him and not completely erode his faith in humanity?

So incensed is she with the break-in, Ms Stanley is set to pack up her family and shift to Estella, where the crime rate is relatively low.

Her story echoes that of dozens of Wagga residents – and that’s just for this year.

Police report a staggering 54 break-ins in the first 11 days of 2017, an average of almost five a day.

Many of the break-ins have occurred while residents were sleeping in their home.

The sense of violation victims feel can’t be measured in numbers.

It can be measured in dollars, it can be measured in the diminished feeling of security in their own home, it can be measured in the loss of trust in the community.

And for what?

Just so some morally bankrupt degenerate can feed their selfish habit, or in the case of burned-out cars, get some perverted thrill.

Police are up for the challenge, but they are swimming against an impossible tide.

Under-resourced and hamstrung by the Young Offenders Act and hopelessly out-of-touch magistrates, officers are as frustrated as the rest of us.

Most galling is that they believe it is only a small group of offenders, many of them from out of town, creating so much damage.

Despite the robbery epidemic, Operation Assure should be considered a success.

It has given police the imprimatur to take a zero tolerance approach to would-be offenders.

But for police to break the back of the current home robbery spree, it must be extended.

We need more officers for more hours in crime hot spots across Wagga’s southern suburbs.

And we need you, the residents of Wagga, to starve these thieves of oxygen by looking out for your neighbours and ensuring your home is secure.