GOP lawmakers outline proposal to fight juvenile crime
Special session urged to curb ‘out of control’ car thefts, related offenses
Saying that Democrats have offered only distortions and excuses in the face of a juvenile crime surge, Republican legislative leaders Tuesday outlined a multipronged approach to curbing car thefts and related offenses.
“Like the overwhelming majority of the public,” House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora said in a press conference at the Capitol, “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.”
The Republicans again called for a special session of the General Assembly to address the issue.
“Juvenile crime in this state is out of control,” Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-wallingford, the judiciary committee’s House ranking member, said.
In their own press conference last week, Democrats and policy experts blamed the juvenile crime spike that has hit many suburban communities on factors that include a childhood mental health crisis, economic instability brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and a fraying social service safety net in poor communities.
Democrats joined advocates from the Connecticut Justice Alliance, the Tow Youth Justice Institute and the American Civil
Liberties Union of Connecticut to address the issue, which has dominated headlines in Connecticut for most of the summer.
The group expressed sympathy for crime victims while presenting a counternarrative to Republican calls for tougher penalties for juvenile offenders. Harsher punishment won’t stop the thefts, Rep. Robyn Porter, D-new Haven, said.
“Our communities need resources. Idle time is the devil’s playground. Give these kids something productive to do ... invest in them, we can’t keep throwing them away,” Porter said.
Sen. Gary Winfield, D-new Haven, said Tuesday he had not gone piece by piece through the Republican proposals, but facts matter, and if the GOP is trying to make people believe there’s a crisis of crime in the state, “that’s just not what’s happening.”
Crime overall has been decreasing, although certain types of crimes, notably car thefts, have been increasing in some communities. Addressing the problem, Winfield said, should not involve scare tactics.
Fishbein and Candelora said they recognize the complexity of the issue, and Republican lawmakers are not focused on simply jailing teenagers. At the same time, Fishbein said, Democrats have minimized the effects of a crime wave that has included the hit-and-run death of a New Britain jogger, flaming car crashes and several shootings in which vehicle owners confronting thieves were targeted and, in at least one case, hit by gunfire.
He also talked about the consequences when vehicles people rely on are suddenly gone. “It’s not just a property crime,” Fishbein said, noting that car theft victims can’t get to their jobs and medical appointments or pick up their kids on time. Also, some thieves have taken off in cars with kids inside.
Jill Barry, a Democrat from Glastonbury, attended the news conference with GOP leaders on the Capitol’s north steps. Glastonbury has been particularly hard hit by car burglaries and thefts and related crimes over the past year.
“This is not a party issue,” Barry said. “I stand with my community.”
Candelora said the system is failing everyone, including juvenile offenders. A man watching the news conference asked, “How is it failing them — by not locking them up?”
Candelora answered that when a teenager is arrested 40 times and there is no adjudication of his offenses, that is a systemic failure.
Among the Republican leaders’ proposals:
■ Mandatory GPS monitoring of juveniles who are arrested while awaiting trial in a separate case.
■ Require fingerprinting of juveniles arrested on charges that involve loss of life or serious injury, sexual assault or use of a firearm.
■ Give police access to all juvenile records to ensure officers have complete information when seeking detention orders after arrests. Currently, police have complained, they often have no idea whether a young suspect is a repeat offender.
■ Give courts the ability to require state Department of Children and Families investigations for those juveniles charged with serious crimes.
■ Juvenile cases should be adjudicated in the court where the offense occurred, not where the suspect lives.
■ Expand circumstances in which a case is automatically transferred to the regular criminal docket when the charges include loss of life or serious injury, a violent sexual assault and offenses involving firearms.
■ Eliminate current definitions of larceny involving motor vehicles and create a new offense of “larceny of a motor vehicle” that is not tied to the vehicle’s value. A second offense would be a class B felony and eligible for automatic transfer to adult court.
■ Direct the Judicial Branch, in consultation with the Office of the Public Defender and other agencies to study and report to the judiciary committee the staffing level of juvenile probation officers, the number of juvenile diversionary and pretrial programs and their content and efficacy in reducing recidivism and the availability and efficacy of juvenile job training and drug treatment programs.
■ Direct the state Judicial Branch and DCF to study the potential use of DCF group homes and the Connecticut Juvenile Training School to house certain nonviolent offenders, along with juveniles whose parents or guardians request help in correcting troubling behavior or as hubs for residential diversionary and job training programs.
“This plan,” Fishbein said, “highlights our caucus’s 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.
“I urge my colleagues to act decisively and pass these important justice reforms before another innocent victim is injured or killed.”