'Victims will have no sympathy for burglars who target them' - Doncaster Free Press opinion

The 40-year- old from Hexthorpe, has been jailed after a series of break-ins across Doncaster.

Some of them were even committed after he had been put on bail for earlier offences.

The fact is, for victims, burglary is a terrible crime. For businesses, it means disruption that can affect their ability to pay the bills and pay their staff.

For people who have their own homes broken into, it can mean the heartbreaking loss of personal and sentimental items that are irreplacable, items such as family heirlooms.

Police are clearly taking this issue seriously right now. Late last month, officers described in the police column in this paper how they have brought back a specialist burglary squad in Doncaster to curb the numbers of cases that they have been seeing across the borough.

It means they are running dedicated patrols in areas where they know there is a problem, and hopefully reduce the number of break-ins taking place by having officers in the right place.

The early signs had been promising with a number of arrests made within a short time after they started taking action in Bessacarr and Cantley.

Sadly though, police cannot be in all places at once. Therefore we need to take a broad approach to dealing with the problem.

Looking at the latest case, it is telling that the man who was jailed this week had cocaine and heroin with him when he was arrested.

It has been well documented that many burglaries are to pay for drugs.

So whatever the police do, there needs to be something done to help those who are suffering from drug addiction.

And that is not all down to the police. Drugs are a health issue as much as a crime issue.

That means health and social care agencies who work with people involved with drugs need all the support we can give them. It is great to see the Goverment putting money into policing, but they must also make sure they are back that up with help for those dealing with the social problems that pile more cases on top of the force’s workload.