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Stolen cars and a hit-and-run death push Republican and Democratic legislators to promise juvenile justice reforms

Hartford Courant - 7/7/2021

Republican and Democratic legislators agreed Wednesday to try to improve Connecticut's juvenile justice system after a rash of car thefts and other crimes by repeat juvenile criminals.

A string of stolen car incidents and the hit-and-run death last week of a 53-year-old man jogging in New Britain has led to Republican calls for tougher laws.

Republicans called again Wednesday for a special legislative session this summer, but they appeared later with top Democrats at a press conference in a show of unity that they would work together. Among the issues is potentially changing a state law from 2018 that prevents the detention of juveniles for more than six hours. No decisions were made on the potential change, but lawmakers said the detentions could be extended longer as police investigations were continuing.

In addition, lawmakers called for judges to have immediate access to a juvenile's entire criminal record so that they could make better decisions -- often at home and on weekends -- about whether to release a juvenile who has been charged with a crime.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Hartford Democrat, said the two sides had "a productive first meeting'' as they seek to make administrative or statutory changes as needed.

"I don't think anybody in our caucus is saying people who've been charged with five or six or seven crimes - some involving violent offenses - shouldn't be put in detention for themselves or the public,'' Ritter said. "What's happening is judges don't have all that information. It was shocking to me to learn today. So these are the things we're going to talk about the next week or so.''

Citing separate incidents of late-night gun fire in Glastonbury and Simsbury, House Republican leader Vincent Candelora said he feared that the situation could escalate if homeowners fire back when criminals are trying to steal their cars. He called for a comprehensive plan to resolve the situation.

Candelora noted that the state had shut down the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown, a high-security facility for the state's most troubled juvenile criminals that closed in 2018 under then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

"It was closed certainly without a plan, and now we are seeing the impacts of that,'' Candelora said.

A broader problem, he said, is that the training school included a broad range of programs to help youths instead of being only a detention center. He added that two teenagers who recently vandalized the Wolcott senior center should have been in a detention center instead of living at a group home operated by the Department of Children and Families.

"Those two teenagers came out of a group home, they had prior [arrests], and it wasn't addressed,'' Candelora said. "I don't know that a DCF group home is equipped to handle criminals.''

No special session

Democrats have rejected the calls for a special session, saying they are focused more on rehabilitating troubled youths instead of sending them to prison.

For years, Democrats have pushed hard to "raise the age'' so that 16 and 17-year-old youths would be handled in juvenile court, rather than adult court with more hardened criminals. Before the 2018 change in law that was tied to federal funding that has since dried up, juveniles who were arrested on Fridays at 6 p.m. could be held throughout the entire weekend until the courts reopened on Monday morning. Now, that does not happen, legislators said.

While the lawmakers appeared together at the news conference, Ritter acknowledged that they will disagree on various policies about juvenile justice while still trying to work together in the coming weeks and months to improve the system.

"This meeting was not intended to redraft all the criminal justice reforms that we've had over the years,'' Ritter told reporters. "There might be disagreement on some of those things. At the end of the day, Connecticut is proud of the progress we've made. Our arrests and our rates in prisons have gone way down.''

Repeat offenders

The number of criminals in prison is now less than half of the all-time peak of 19,894 in February 2008, which occurred following the triple slayings and arson at the Petit family home in Cheshire on July 23, 2007. The prison population exploded by about 1,200 after then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell froze the parole system following the triple homicide.

Recently, several high-profile incidents have caught the attention of lawmakers concerned about juvenile justice. But an analysis of police data statewide concluded the number of car thefts dropped precipitously over the last 30 years to a historic low in 2019.

About 6,200 car thefts recorded in 2020 was about 250 thefts higher than the historic low the previous year, but even with the increase the 2020 total was lower than in 2018, the report by the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at Central Connecticut State University found this spring.

Those data follow nationwide trends regarding the overall drop in car thefts over the past several decades and the slight increase in the crime during the COVID-19 pandemic but do not correlate with Connecticut's juvenile justice reform laws over the past decade, IMRP project manager Ken Barone said in March.

"We can really explain and understand the theft rate increase in 2020 more so than we can explain the significant reduction in motor vehicle thefts in 2019," Barone told the state's Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee in March. "My sense is the system was doing something right in 2019. Now we had this big discussion as a state in 2018, so the questions I'm starting to ask are: Were there programs that were put in place, were there changes made in communities, that caused such a significant decrease in 2019? And as a result of the pandemic, did those programs have to go away? Did they have to get put on hold and did that help to fuel some of the increase in 2020?"

The death in New Britain on June 29 has galvanized Republicans and police chiefs over the issue. Police arrested a 17-year-old New Britain male who was driving the stolen vehicle after finding him hiding in a closet at his home. The teen has been arrested 13 times over the last 3 1/2 years, including on charges of robbery, reckless driving, assault with a knife, larceny and possession of narcotics, police said.

New Britain's police chief, Christopher W. Chute, said that nine juveniles in New Britain who are "the worst offenders'' have been arrested an average of 18 times between the ages of 12 and 17. One of them was arrested 25 times, including assault on police, threatening, and evading responsibility. Another has been arrested 40 times since the age of 12, including stolen motor vehicle, assaults on police, burglary, and robbery with a firearm, the chief said.

"The juvenile justice system has failed these offenders,'' Chute said. "The current system did not protect the public from their illegal behavior. ... It's not a new problem for Connecticut. The Connecticut legislative body created an environment in the state that sends a message to our youth that there are no consequences for your actions. Most of these problems started a decade ago when the juvenile age was raised from 16 to 18.''

Republican proposals lead to few changes

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, who did not attend the bipartisan meeting, blasted Republicans.

"It is unfortunate that Republicans are using this tragic and painful event to attempt to score political points in an effort to push failed, excessively punitive policies from the 80 s and 90 s,'' Looney said. "Republicans lost all credibility on public safety when they were silent on the U.S. Capitol insurrection, refused to fund proven urban gun violence prevention programs, and sought to defund or underfund many critical urban aid programs. Law and order is only an issue for Republicans when they can target the urban youth of our state but not when their political base tries to overthrow our democracy and kills a U.S. Capitol police officer."

Republicans are calling for changes that would allow juvenile offenders to be held longer, increase penalties for multiple offenses and revise police department policies when pursuing stolen vehicles.

A 40-year-old man who identified himself only as Will attempted to interrupt the press conference at times Wednesday to refute points made by the Republicans. He said later that legislators need to talk with struggling parents who are working two or three jobs while trying to raise juveniles in their families.

"You don't ask police officers. They want to lock people up,'' he said. "Listen to the people. I don't understand why they're not talking to community leaders. ... No one is addressing public education in New Britain. We don't need more kids in prisons. When you get out of jail, there are no resources for you.''

Republican lawmakers have called for multiple proposals, including increasing criteria to allow a judge to declare that a juvenile poses a risk to public safety after a second crime instead of a third; eliminating the current six-hour limit that a juvenile can be held without a court order; ordering that juveniles charged with a second car theft must wear a GPS monitoring device; and changing the pursuit policy to allow police officers to chase car theft suspects under certain circumstances.

Despite the many proposals, Republicans said only one small change was made -- increasing penalties for adults who coerce juveniles into committing crimes, including stealing cars.

Democrats, however, cited a new law requiring the Judicial Branch to study ways to decrease time between a child's arrest and court appearance, as well as ways to reduce juvenile recidivism. They also pointed to crime statistics and a recent data analysis that they say show the problem is not as severe as Republican lawmakers believe.

Courant staff writer Zach Murdock contributed to this report.

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com

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