Kids, Cars, Crime: Part One

Understanding the who and why behind Connecticut’s latest juvenile crime trend

By Meghan Peterson, PhD.

Editor’s Note: We begin a new series examining juvenile involvement with auto-related crimes in Connecticut and the local impacts of this trend.

Part One: Kids, Cars, Crime

May 13, 2019: Hartford police prepare to serve a juvenile warrant on one 16-year-old New Britain teen, who will be charged with “first-degree manslaughter, first-degree evading responsibility, reckless driving and third-degree larceny,” according to Hartford Police Lt. Paul Cicero. The teen had been driving a stolen car which slammed into a SUV, killing its male driver, Jose “Tito” Mendoza as he drove to work in Hartford.[1] The April 6, 2019 crash had involved a stolen car from Colchester, according to an earlier report.[2]

April 11, 2019: A 15-year-old Stratford boy is arrested for stealing a Stratford Department of Public Works dump truck and remanded to custody by court order. The teen “refused to stop for officers and then struck another vehicle while feeling the area at a high rate of speed into Milford.”[3] Next, in order to get around traffic on the busy Post Road in Milford, the teen driver “crossed both lanes” in front of a woman driving with her 10 year-old in the car and subsequently smashed the “passenger side of her car in the process.”[4]

An April 3, 2019 Boston Globe headline reads: “Car chase ends at Taylor Swift’s house.” Perhaps more significant than the fact this pursuit terminated at the famous singer’s beachfront home in Westerly, Rhode Island? The vehicle was stolen, the driver and passengers of the car ranged in age from 19 to 16 (4 individuals total), and the 19-year-old driver hails from Hartford, Conn.[5]

March 20, 2019: 17-year-old Hartford teen died in a stolen vehicle (a Mercedes stolen from Madison) after it rolled over on Route 79 in Durham. According to the New Haven Register, “[t]he crash occurred at around 3:22 a.m.” and involved a car “which had been stolen…”[6]

December 17, 2018: Two teens under the age of 16 stole two vehicles from the Old Saybrook Ford dealership. The individuals, from Bridgeport, were subsequently apprehended by Old Saybrook police. According to the Fox61 story, “Typically, children are released to their parents’ custody, but these two suspects’ parents never showed up…The Department of Children and Families chose not to pick up the kids either. The teens were remanded to juvenile custody by a Superior Court Judge.” [Old Saybrook Police] Chief Michael Spera told Fox61 that the juvenile laws in Connecticut “don’t carry many consequences.”[7]

The snapshots of news stories noted above encapsulate the stolen car-juvenile involvement combination we are seeing in our state.

From Colchester to Waterbury, Milford to Wallingford, Haddam to Wolcott, Durham to Old Saybrook, and areas in between, residents and local officials alike are witnessing a spike in auto break-ins and thefts. In Manchester alone, for example, there were 22 car thefts last June – a jump from eight the previous month. In Cheshire, NBC Connecticut reported that items were stolen from 114 vehicles during a six-month time period. Stamford and Wallingford police issued warnings of car thefts and break-ins during the months of September and October 2018, respectively. Meanwhile, Milford police warned residents to be aware and take steps to protect and lock their vehicles, following a “rash of break-ins” last fall. Toward the end of October, Wallingford town council officials convened a public meeting to discuss the issue of vehicle-related thefts with residents. According to police there, thefts of items in vehicles and break-ins are up 22% over previous years. In view of the urgency surrounding the public safety issue, Wallingford officials decided to hold monthly meetings to address the matter.

Last summer, Haddam Resident Troopers Enrico Milardo and Joseph Deangelo likewise issued warnings throughout the season advising residents to lock their vehicles, take in valuables with them at night and report suspicious activity. In this vein, Haddam News and Haddam-Killingworthnow.com have carried numerous public service announcements regarding thefts of personal property in vehicles as well as thefts of vehicles themselves.

A recent WTNH/Channel 8 report stated that law enforcement have expressed “they’re drowning in car thefts overwhelmingly committed by juveniles.” According to the article, Clinton Police Department Cpl. Christopher Varone said that characterizing the issue of this crime as “[a]n epidemic is probably accurate.”[8]

FOX61 notes:

[m]any of the region’s stolen cars end up on the streets of Hartford, where they are looking at a nearly 300 percent increase in ‘out of town stolen car recovers’ in just a few years.’ A difficult balancing act for police who have to weigh the dangers of high-speed pursuits, fatal crashes and potential deadly encounters with…a high number of stolen cars being driven around our roads.[9]

What explanatory factors and reasons underlie the incidence of these crimes – in many cases committed by juveniles – throughout our state? In particular, why does nearly every town and city in Connecticut appear to be dealing with this crime in one form or another? In this new weekly series on juvenile involvement in auto-related crimes, we explore potential answers in an effort to better understand the trends we are seeing.

In 2017, the most recent year for which national data is available, there were 48.8 motor vehicle theft arrests per 100,000 persons within the 10-17-year-old range (juvenile offenders) in the United States.[10] This number is significantly higher than in 2013, the year which marked the nation’s lowest number of juvenile arrests for motor vehicle thefts (30.5 arrests per 100,000 juveniles) – having declined 90% from the high point of 343.5 arrests per 100,000 juveniles for motor vehicle thefts in 1989.It is crucial to note that the discussion thus far centers on arrests as opposed to complaints. In other words, arrests are one piece of the larger crime/criminal justice system pie. There may be more – perhaps many more – incidences (occurrences) of motor vehicle theft committed by juveniles that are not captured in the documented arrest numbers.

Graph 1. Juvenile arrest trends for motor vehicle theft in the United States.

Source: OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. Data source – Arrest estimates for 1980-2014 developed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and disseminated through “Arrest Data Analysis Tool.” Online. Available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics website. Arrest estimates for 2015 through 2017 developed by the National Center for Juvenile Justice based on data published in the FBI’s Crime in the United States reports.

At the state level, motor vehicle theft arrests of juveniles are also on the rise in Connecticut. Hartford Courant has recently reported, for example, that “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.”[11] The same article also indicates that according to data compiled by the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, “Auto thefts are up nationally and adults are stealing cars at rates equal to or greater than juveniles.”

According to the Connecticut State Police “Crime in Connecticut 2017” report (2017 is the most recent year for which data is available), there were 7,310 motor vehicle thefts in 2017.[12] Between 2008 and 2017, while the overall motor vehicle theft number has declined from the 2008 number of 8,823 offenses to 7,310 in 2017, the number of offenses has been increasing since 2015 (6,427 – up from 6,100 in 2014); and 2016 (7,105). In percentage terms, these offenses spiked 5% in 2015; 11% in 2016 and 3% in 2017 in the state.[13] Trends of motor vehicle thefts at both the state and national level between 2008 and 2017 are depicted in Graph 2.

Graph 2. Motor Vehicle Thefts Rate: US & CT 2008-2017.[14]

Statewide, there were a total of 938 individuals arrested for motor vehicle theft in 2017. 330 of those were under the age of 18; 608 were 18 and up. In percentages, about 35% of persons arrested in Connecticut for motor vehicle theft were under the age of 18; and approximately 65% of arrestees were over the age of 18.

Digging deeper into those numbers, it is important to note that 412 individuals between the ages of 15 and 19 were arrested for motor vehicle theft in Connecticut – the single largest age category of arrestees for this offense in 2017. The next largest number (134) came from the 20-24 year-old range. Thus, 546 arrestees (of the 938 overall total) were between the ages of 15 and 24. In other words, roughly 58% of motor vehicle arrestees in Connecticut during 2017 were juvenile and or/young adult offenders.

Meanwhile, 800 arrestees were male; 138 were female. 488 arrestees were White; 425 were Black; 4 were Asian; 1 was American Indian; 20 were of Unknown Race.[15]

The population in Middlesex County (MC), of which Haddam is a part, stood at 163,236 people in 2017. A total of 237 motor vehicle thefts were committed in the County in 2017, amounting to a value stolen over $3.5 million ($3,555,867). A total of 30 individuals under the age of 18 were arrested for motor vehicle theft that year as well, with 59 individuals ages 18 and up arrested for this offense category – for a total of 89 arrestees. [16]

Given the focus on juvenile involvement in auto-related crimes, it is helpful to see a further parsing of the age of motor vehicle theft arrestees under age 18 for MC in 2017:

Age 13-14: 5

Age 15:      5

Age 16:    12

Age 17:      8

Within the 18 and older age category for motor vehicle theft arrestees in MC, the highest number were those between ages 25-29 (12).

In terms of additional demographic information for motor vehicle theft offenders arrested in Middlesex County, males comprised 79 of the arrestees; 10 female arrestees made up the remainder. 47 of the arrestees where White; 39 were Black; 3 were of Unknown Race.[17]

Through this weekly series focusing on juvenile involvement in auto-related crimes, we explore the various moving parts of this topic in order to better understand trends we are observing – and more importantly, the impacts of those trends.

Keeping in mind the ages of motor vehicle theft juvenile offenders, we will consider the following as we move forward in this series:

• Given that the teen brain is not fully developed until at least age 25,[18]
• Given that the frontal lobe of the brain, which is significantly responsible for driving skills, is not fully developed until 25-30 years of age,[19]
• Given that juveniles lack both the reasoning capacity and experiential knowledge requisite to driving safely at their developmental stage…

What are the safety issues posed to the public: to other drivers? to pedestrians? to the juvenile driver’s own life? to responding law enforcement?

In Part Two we will dive into the legal aspects surrounding this topic. For this ongoing series, many thanks are in order for their expertise and assistance: Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane; Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney, Francis J. Carino; Haddam Resident Trooper Enrico Milardo; Killingworth Resident Trooper Scott Wisner; William H. Carbone, Executive Director of the Tow Youth Justice Institute (University of New Haven).

[1] https://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-br-hartford-stolen-car-fatal-crash-jose-mendoza-arrest-20190513-cgzbrsxq65anppphit6f4kpk3u-story.html.

[2] https://www.wfsb.com/news/one-person-dead-following-crash-involving-a-stolen-car-in/article_aa253ab4-588f-11e9-b038-2fe159a5bbad.html.

[3] https://www.wtnh.com/news/crime/video-police-chase-stolen-dump-truck-down-route-1-in-milford/1915727443.

[4] https://www.wtnh.com/news/crime/video-police-chase-stolen-dump-truck-down-route-1-in-milford/1915727443.

[5] https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2019/04/03/car-chase-ends-taylor-swift-house/GNwPpRHIjObO28zGJQo9KL/story.html.

[6] https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Driver-of-stolen-car-dies-after-crash-ejected-13705276.php.

[7] https://fox61.com/2018/12/17/teens-caught-after-stealing-two-cars-from-saybrook-ford/.

[8] https://www.wtnh.com/news/connecticut/middlesex/local-cops-say-car-thefts-by-juveniles-now-epidemic/1685499168.

[9] https://fox61.com/2019/01/16/car-thefts-continue-to-rise-in-state/.

[10] https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05207&selOffenses=8.

[11] https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-juvenile-car-theft-bill-20190311-lgk2475i7nfbpan2o57b7zb2gy-story.html.

[12] 2017 is the most recent year for which Connecticut State Police crime data is available. Visit https://www.dpsdata.ct.gov for more information.

[13] https://www.dpsdata.ct.gov/dps/ucr/data/2017/Crime%20in%20Connecticut%202017.pdf.

[14] Connecticut State Police Crime Report 2017, p. 24.

[15] https://www.dpsdata.ct.gov/dps/ucr/data/2017/Crime%20in%20Connecticut%202017.pdf.

[16] https://www.dpsdata.ct.gov/dps/ucr/data/2017/Crime%20in%20Connecticut%202017.pdf.

[17] https://www.dpsdata.ct.gov/dps/ucr/data/2017/Crime%20in%20Connecticut%202017.pdf.

[18] https://www.gjel.com/brain-injury-lawyers/teen-brain-development.html.

[19] https://www.gjel.com/brain-injury-lawyers/teen-brain-development.html.