Juvenile Crime Rising In CT As Leaders Seek Solutions

CONNECTICUT — Just how bad is youth crime in Connecticut? Depends on who you ask, and the answer you will receive will largely fall along partisan lines.

Last week, the Connecticut Justice Alliance, Tow Youth Justice Institute at the University of New Haven and the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut held a news conference with mostly Democratic political leaders at the state Capitol to "discuss data-driven solutions to car thefts and youth crime."

The discussion centered on ways to combat car thefts and crimes by juveniles "that don’t center on incarcerating teens but instead offer an actual plan of action to provide resources to support their specific needs."

In communities like New Canaan and Darien, for example, car thefts have increased in recent years, and in other communities throughout Connecticut, teenagers have been at the center of several high-profile crimes.

According to the Tow Youth Justice Institute, however, car thefts and crimes committed by teens dropped in Connecticut between 1991 and 2019, and they only rose slightly in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, reported Fox61.

"The issue of juvenile car thefts demands our attention," said state Sen. Gary Winfield, a Democrat who represents New Haven. "We should be paying attention to whether we are asking the right questions about the root causes, so we can develop and implement the right answers. Anything less is political and dangerous."

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Anecdotally, however, it does not feel like juvenile crime has largely dropped in recent years, according to some Republican leaders in the state House. This week, some of them held their own news conference to discuss the issue and offer some solutions.

"Like the overwhelming majority of the public, we believe the balance of our juvenile justice system is pitched too far toward perpetrators of crime and, in this case, toward teenagers who are knowingly exploiting a system that allows them to get arrested over and over with very little consequence," said House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, who represents Durham and parts of other nearby communities.

House Republicans are pushing for the following reforms to improve the juvenile justice system and address juvenile crime:

• Implementing victim impact panels and juvenile delinquency hearings
• Electronic monitoring for juveniles arrested while awaiting trial on previous offenses
• Expedited arraignment for felonies, a sex assault, offense involving use of a firearm
• Court-ordered Family Support Services intervention at juvenile court arraignments
• Expand circumstances in which a matter is automatically transferred to regular criminal docket
• Create a new offense of "larceny of a motor vehicle" not tied to the value of the vehicle

"This plan highlights our caucus' unwavering, no-nonsense approach to slowing, stopping and preventing juvenile crime through specific, detailed, and sensible policies that protect the individual personal rights of victims while assuring accountability and making sure that any accused juvenile has access to goal-oriented diversionary and post-arrest counseling and programming," said Republican Rep. Craig Fishbein, who represents Cheshire and Wallingford, and is also the Judiciary Committee's House Ranking Member. "I urge my colleagues to act decisively and pass these important justice reforms before another innocent victim is injured or killed."

The advocacy groups and Democrats, however, said that while the juvenile justice system needs fixing, blaming the teens does not solve the problem. Simply cracking down on youth offenders does not address the root causes of the issue.

"As an educator and legislator, I have seen firsthand how just policies, practices, and funding can make a difference in the lives of all young people in Connecticut," said state Rep. Toni Walker, a Democrat from New Haven who also co-chairs the Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee. "We all must dispel falsehoods, and all begin speaking the truth about what is available under the law for local authorities."

Under current laws, courts can incarcerate a youth in a juvenile detention center at the time of arrest (or later) "if the child poses a risk to public safety and if there's a need to hold the child for failure to respond to court process," the advocates said. Additionally, teens 15 years old and older who are charged with the most serious offenses are automatically transferred to adult court.

"Now is not the time to change our direction, now is the time to rebuild the systems that have proven effective," said Hector Glynn, chief operating officer at The Village for Families & Children in Hartford. He also co-chairs the Racial and Ethnic Disparities Workgroup of the Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee.