Connecticut lawmakers seeking to stop rash of juvenile car thefts

Article as it appeared in the Hartford Courant

Prompted by a sharp increase in automobile thefts by juveniles, lawmakers are seeking ways to solve the problem including transferring more juveniles to adult court or providing them with additional services.

Police are concerned about the increasing thefts and say repeat criminals have no fear of juvenile court because they know they will receive far less punishment than in adult court.

In a recent case, a 17-year-old Hartford teenager, Luis Martinez, and some of his friends stole a $90,000 Mercedes Benz SUV from an upscale neighborhood in Madison. After passing a police officer at a traffic circle, the Mercedes eventually reached speeds as high as 120 mph and crashed — killing Martinez. The suspected driver was not immediately located after the crash and escaped.

Senate Republican leader Len Fasano of North Haven testified Monday in favor of creating a special diversionary program that would provide extra services for repeat criminals and try to help them become rehabilitated to avoid future crimes.

“This bill seeks to address these concerns by getting to the root of the problem and steering youthful offenders away from criminal behavior so they can get their lives back on track,” Fasano told members of the legislature’s judiciary committee during a public hearing Monday.

Fasano said the program would be modeled on one for juveniles currently facing substance abuse issues.

Juveniles entering the program would be assigned to a probation officer who would monitor the improvements to avoid prosecution or eventually have charges dismissed. Fasano said the bill should be amended to ask juveniles in the program to anonymously explain what is driving the increase in thefts.

The legislature is also debating a separate bill that would add car theft to the list of crimes that would trigger an automatic transfer from juvenile to adult court if the offender has at least two previous felony convictions.

Arrests of juveniles for car theft in Connecticut are up 37 percent over the past decade, the only category of juvenile crime, including robbery, burglary, larceny, vandalism and drug abuse, that hasn’t radically decreased, according to a nonprofit that tracks national crime trends.

A report prepared for the General Assembly last week shows that while motor vehicle thefts have declined in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, they have significantly increased in the surrounding suburbs over the last decade. The police chief in Waterbury recently testified that the situation is acute in his city. Many of the cars are left unlocked with their keys inside.

Christina Quaranta, deputy director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, wrote in testimony to lawmakers that sending juveniles to adult court is not the answer.

“All research tells us that youth in the adult system are more apt to reoffend than their peers kept in the juvenile system,” she said. “Any dollars that Connecticut spends to ensure the juvenile justice system is as good as it can be are an investment in public safety, community health, and young people. Dollars spent trying to and actually incarcerating young people in the adult system are dollars “invested” (wasted) in an approach that is proven not to do any of those things. As a state, we need to stop doing that.”

Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, told Fasano there needs to be more after-school activities to help juveniles to avoid becoming repeat offenders and getting involved in crimes with other youths.

“That is one of the key outliers that we don’t talk about,” Walker said. “We have to do better. … We have to come up with a better system that is fully manned with services. … Children do stupid things because they’re children.”

One of the problems, she said, is that the state shut down the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown, which served as a prison for juveniles and had programs to monitor individuals.

Deputy House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford said a police officer told him months ago he was concerned the thefts would eventually lead to the deaths of young, high-speed drivers in stolen cars. Citing statistics from AAA, he said Connecticut has the highest fatality rate among young drivers in the country.

“These children are just being arrested and released, and there’s no consequences to their actions,” Candelora told the committee. “They’re being charged and released. Sadly, we’re beginning to see people being killed as the result of their behavior.”

Sen. Gary Winfield, a New Haven Democrat who co-chairs the judiciary committee, said he is concerned about learning more statistics on the ongoing problem.

“Teenagers have always stolen cars,” Winfield said. “Why haven’t we done this before?”

“A lot of these kids are actually crying out for help and attention,” said Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven. “There’s not a lot of productive and constructive things for them to do. … It’s multipronged.”

But Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, said, “The fact that I leave my keys in my car should not be an excuse to steal the car. … This car stuff has certainly got to stop.”

Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, the state’s top prosecutor, said the state needs to take action on these cases in a way that officials have not done recently.

“There either needs to be more effort put into giving juvenile judges sufficient discretion to handle these cases appropriately such as detention options and options after adjudication that would be better than what is available now,” Kane said. “If we’re not going to give the juvenile courts more authority than we need to transfer more cases to adult court.”

Kane said the problem is limited to “a small number of kids who are stealing the cars and making a game of it.”

“It’s a small number of cases, less than 10 percent of the juvenile docket,” he said. “We’re talking no more than 100 juveniles who really need more than the juvenile court can provide.”