Jail time is what burglars deserve

If you've never been burgled, you don't know how lucky you are.

The ordeal of arriving home to find burglars have been there while you've been out is hideous.

Dame Susan Devoy summed up it up so well when she wrote in her Saturday column a few weeks back about coming home to find the place a mess and so much gone.

"You feel as though you are the only victim in the world," she wrote.

I learned the hard way a couple of years ago that burglars don't need the bathroom window open very far to slink into your home and why you should always take the time to back-up photos on laptops.

They took all the good stuff - cameras, computers, iPods. Luckily our burglar seemed to have a tiny ounce of conscience and left behind a few special pieces of jewellery that could easily have been taken.

Still, it was horrible to know someone had been walking through our house, assessing what they would and wouldn't take.

I don't think I could ever live in a house without a burglar alarm again - I'd always be hiding my precious things and wondering what I would find when I get home. When you get burgled you never get over it.

Thankfully the law recognises the serious impact a burglary can have on a person's psyche - the maximum sentence that can be given to a convicted burglar is ten years.

Aggravated assault on the other hand has a maximum penalty of three years, according to the Ministry of Justice's website. If only what a burglar gets was somewhere in the vicinity of 10 years.

There are so many burglary cases that come through Tauranga District Court that our court reporter can't cover them all, but on Monday we reported on the case of a burglar who took irreplaceable items when he burgled the home of local couple Ray and Janet Crafts.

They were in court to eyeball the man who took their priceless belongings and left them paranoid about home security.

They no doubt will be there again when he is sentenced, but if it's jail time they're hoping for they could be out of luck.

In the middle of this year a Pukehina teen who admitted he had been on a burglary spree was given a sentence of community detention and supervision.

Nineteen people are now likely to be in and out of court over the next few months in relation to Operation Safe Home, which we've reported on today's front page.

The police have done the hard work, now we just have to hope these people get the jail time they deserve.

The feeling of being burgled never goes away. Jail time is the only thing the people responsible deserve.