CT car thieves evading capture, driving up crime [CT Post]

Article as it appeared in Hearst Connecticut Papers

While legislators and juvenile justice advocates have been sparring over proposed legislation aimed at reining in juveniles accused of car thefts, Fairfield Police Chief Chris Lyddy has been watching videos.

“We have one case where a high-end vehicle was stolen out of Fairfield,” Lyddy said. “We have video from the next day with a juvenile hanging out of the sunroof in the same car firing a gun in Bridgeport.”

What’s clear, according to a recent report given to juvenile justice advocates last week, is that smaller and medium-sized towns are seeing increases in the number of car thefts while larger cities have experienced a steady decline in recent years.

What’s not clear, according to Kenneth Barone, project manager for Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, who drafted the report, is who is actually stealing the cars.

His report indicates that only about 14 percent of car theft cases result in an arrest each year. Barone claims the small percentage of arrests is making it impossible to determine if juveniles are driving the increases in car thefts.

But officials in towns like Fairfield, which saw the largest increase in motor vehicle thefts in 2017 in more than a decade, are pretty clear about who they are dealing with routinely.

“We’re seeing almost exclusively juveniles,” Lyddy said. “We stopped a car weekend before last and caught four, three were juveniles and one 18-year-old. We’re seeing juveniles from cities in Connecticut. They come in, hit a neighborhood, try the doors and take the unlocked cars with the key fobs inside. We haven’t seen any sophisticated technical means of stealing cars. We have video after video.”

The kids have “no qualms” about telling arresting officers that they will be back at it the next day, Lyddy said. “There are no consequences,” he said. “The juveniles we are catching are the same juveniles over and over again.”

In 2017, Greenwich, Fairfield, Trumbull and Shelton experienced the worst year for car thefts in more than a decade.

But since the car thefts hit a low of 6,100 in 2014, the numbers have steadily climbed statewide and nationally, Barone said.

Barone concluded that car thefts in the state’s major cities dropped by double-digit percentages from 2008 to 2017. The lone exception was Waterbury, where there was a 91 percent increase in car thefts during that period.

At the same time, suburban communities with populations less than 25,000 people have seen a 20 percent increase during that span. Central Connecticut towns like Wethersfield, Rocky Hill and Newington also had the most car thefts in a decade in 2017.

Barone presented his findings Friday to the Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee, which requested the data as legislators and law enforcement examine ways to address the rising rate of car thefts.

Of the 93 municipalities Barone examined in his report, 27 experienced the highest number of car thefts in 2017 than the previous 10 years. Another 10 municipalities saw the highest number of car thefts in more than a decade in 2016.

Four of the state’s largest cities, New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford and New Britain, along with 14 other municipalities, saw the largest number of car thefts in 2008 with the incidents declining in the past decade.

Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane told the Judiciary Committee that he’s not attributing the increase to the legislature’s decision to raise the age of adult prosecutions to 18 in 2012. But the state’s top prosecutor said action needs to be taken to address these crimes, which have in some cases led to deaths as the suspects attempted to evade police.

“It should be clear that we are not stating that the ‘raise-the-age’ legislation is responsible for the recent increase in juvenile auto thefts, but acknowledging that the problem does exist and must be addressed,” Kane said. “There is currently no effective means available for law enforcement and the juvenile justice system to respond immediately to the threat these small number of serious repeat juvenile offenders are posing to themselves and others.”

Even child advocates are split on how to handle the cases, according to testimony provided to the Judiciary Committee.

The state’s Child Advocate Sarah Healy Eagan supports a bill sponsored by Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, that would suspend delinquency proceedings for juveniles charged with car theft in favor of treatment.

If the juvenile successfully completed services under the watch of a probation officer, the case would be dismissed. If the juvenile racks up three car theft offenses, the teen would face more serious consequences, including being sent to a detention center, according to the proposed bill.

Connecticut legislators through the Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee have asked for fewer juvenile incarcerations, said Abby Anderson, executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, which successfully campaigned to raise the age for adult prosecutions.

But at the same time, Anderson pointed out Monday in her testimony to the Judicial Committee that lawmakers have given less funding for services for at-risk youth — which she said is now driving calls for legislation to incarcerate more teens accused of stealing cars.

“Passing regressive legislation to put more youth in detention as a result of our state’s failure to fund and implement appropriate alternative interventions is ineffectively holding young people accountable for their behavior while refusing to acknowledge our own responsibility in how we got to where we are today,” Anderson said.

Lyddy acknowledges that there are no easy answers.

“It’s a tough situation,” he said. “I believe in juvenile justice reform. But at the same time, there has to be consequences. Stealing cars, using cars in crimes and using handguns, there has to be consequences.”