In the past seven years, Connecticut legislators have tried to curb juvenile car theft through a variety of criminal justice reforms. Since these sentencing reforms and diversionary programs have been implemented, however, the number of juveniles being arrested for car theft is substantially higher than before these policies took effect.  

The most recent reforms took effect in October 2022 and changed how courts can monitor juvenile re-offenders, increasing the amount of time juveniles can stay in detention after an initial arrest, and imposing a shorter time frame for courts to give juvenile hearings. 

The number of juvenile car theft arrests increased by 350%, from 202 in 2022 to 906 in 2023, then dropped by more than 50% the next year, but were 100% higher than the number of arrests in 2022. The state’s Crime Analysis Unit is slated to release the 2025 Crime in Connecticut Annual Report in October.

Some cities use hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to administer these reforms, but it is unclear if they are making any meaningful difference in reducing juvenile auto theft. 

Since Connecticut’s juvenile criminal justice system and alternative diversionary programs are not centralized, there is no comprehensive data about the extent of juvenile auto theft. Most state agencies rely on arrest data, but these numbers are most likely undercounts, because the state’s Motor Vehicle Pursuit Policies limit when and how officers can attempt to apprehend suspected motor vehicle thieves.

In 2019, Connecticut legislators created a diversionary program allowing juveniles charged with offenses related to motor vehicle theft to request their sentence be suspended for six months. In those six months, they have the opportunity to address the behavioral issues or conditions that led to car theft. If they complete that program, their charges will be dismissed. 

The Office of Legislative Research (OLR) released a report at the end of 2022 claiming the program was a success. The report cited a “general downward trend” in juvenile car theft arrests between 2020, when the program began, and 2022. In the 302 cases reviewed as of December 2022, 64% of participants completed the program, 19% didn’t, and the remaining 17% were currently in the program. 

While OLR officials were touting the program’s success, both Democrats and Republicans in the legislature were trying to address rising juvenile car theft.  In fact, juvenile car theft was a point of significant discussion during the 2021 and 2022 legislative sessions.

“Connecticut, like many states across our country, has experienced an uptick in juvenile motor vehicle thefts and other criminal activity,” a 2022 statement from the Connecticut House Democrats said. “The new law updates Connecticut’s criminal justice statutes so that our courts and law enforcement can effectively respond to juveniles with repeated motor vehicle theft and other crimes.”

The 2022 law, HB 5417, allowed court officials to mandate electronic monitoring systems for juveniles charged with two or more auto theft offenses. This bill also required courts to bring juveniles before a judge within five business days of their arrest and requires judges to clearly report in writing why they believe a juvenile should not be held at a residential facility during the duration of their trial, among other changes to existing statutes. 

These changes took effect in October of that year. 

Around the same number of juveniles were arrested for car theft in 2021 as in 2022—204 and 202, respectively, according to the annual Crime in Connecticut reports. But in 2023, when those reforms were in place for the entire year, the number of juveniles arrested for motor vehicle theft skyrocketed to 906. In 2024, that number dropped to 408—less than half of the number of arrests in 2023, but still twice as many arrests as there were in 2022. 

Part of this increase might be cultural. In 2022, a group of teenagers in Milwaukee who called themselves the “Kia Boyz” because they stole Kias and Hyundais—Hyundai Motor Group is the parent company of Kia Motors, and the two manufacturers share a technology vulnerability—became known across the country because of a YouTube documentary. Two years later, an independent YouTube journalist, Andrew Sullivan, created his own documentary about the Connecticut Kia Boyz. He claimed that, after the 2022 video went viral, Kia Boyz gangs spread across the country and described the Connecticut gangs as the most “fearless and brazen” Kia Boyz in the nation.

In 2024, OLS officials reported that 13% of juveniles who went through diversionary programs for auto theft were re-arrested within 12 months of completing those programs. That report stated that the 13% diversionary rate is proof that the program is successful. This number is based on a study of 18% of juveniles referred to diversionary programs, and only applies to the people who complete their programs. Depending on the year, between one-fifth and one-third of the juveniles referred to programs do not complete them. 

Sen. Paul Cicarella (R-East Haven), ranking member of Connecticut’s Public Safety and Security Committee, who had not heard of the 13% recidivism rate before speaking with Inside Investigator, said he was skeptical of that number and pointed to possible limiting factors.

“Statistics and data [are] very pliable, and you can run the numbers a lot of different ways to provide a certain outcome, and we don’t know when they’re doing this, what they take into consideration,” Cicarella said. “If it’s on arrest, a lot of the car thefts, they’re not getting caught, because they’re able to run from the police… There’s policies that are put in place that won’t allow officers to pursue.”

Connecticut’s Police Motor Vehicle Pursuit Policy, which was most recently updated in 2021, states that even if an officer has a reasonable suspicion that a driver committed a crime or is currently committing a crime, they cannot always pursue a suspect. 

“A pursuit shall not be undertaken, even if allowable by other provisions of this policy, unless and until the officer, based upon the information available to him/her at the time, shall make an objectively reasonable determination that the threat of imminent death or serious physical injury to the officer, the public or both, created by the pursuit is less than the immediate or potential danger to the public, should the suspect(s) or occupant(s) remain at large,” the guidelines state. 

One of the factors that police have to take into consideration is “Population density, vehicular and pedestrian traffic,” meaning that if someone is speeding away with a stolen car in a crowded area, police are not supposed to pursue them. 

“In my opinion, there needs to be a balance to that,” Cicarella said. “If it’s in the middle of the day, three o’clock, kids are getting out of school, you might not want to pursue because somebody running from the police driving a high rate of speed, maybe a juvenile that doesn’t have driver’s license, could be very dangerous, not only for the juvenile, but all of the general public going on with their day to day life. But when these individuals committing these crimes know there is no accountability, that they won’t be chased, they’re just going to continue to run.”

Last legislative session, Cicarella introduced a bill to update the pursuit policies to emphasize that officers should consider whether the person fleeing has committed a felony, is suspected of having committed a felony, or may be a harm to the public when determining if a pursuit is appropriate. The bill died in the chamber. 

Diversionary programs have been around for decades, but only since 2019 have perpetrators of more serious crimes, including auto-theft, been referred to them.

“We thought that we were getting somewhere, but then the practice book changed,” Cicarella said about his efforts to work across the aisle for criminal justice reform in 2021. Although the diversionary program for juvenile motor theft was established in 2019, in 2021, the legislature passed a law that automatically establishes mandatory prearrest diversionary plans for “low-risk children.” Cicarella voted against that law. “What changed was more crimes were eligible for the diversionary programs and to go to a Juvenile Review Board (JRB), one of which was grand theft auto.”

JRBs are the linchpin of the state’s diversionary programs. Board members review a juvenile’s crime and history before suggesting alternatives to Juvenile Court. 

JRBs operate on a local level, although the Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee (JJPOC), at the state level, does evaluate whether or not juvenile offenders have access to them. JRBs are usually made up of youth service agencies and members of police departments and juvenile courts. There are no state agencies overseeing JRBs. JRBs also offer alternatives for school officials who would otherwise resort to suspensions and expulsions.

JRBs get their funding through many sources, including local, state, and federal taxpayer funds. The JRB in Hartford, for example, receives money through both the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) and the City of Hartford.  

City of Hartford officials allocated almost $250,000 for their JRB from 2024 to 2026. They received 95 youth referrals in 2024—88 fewer cases than in 2023—and around 170 cases in 2025.

In 2023, 2024, and 2025, 48%, 31% and around 75% of people were enrolled in case management, and around 85% of people each year completed their case management, according to city records. This data does not say which crimes the offenders committed or were accused of. 

In New Haven and Hamden, the Urban Community Alliance (UCA) oversees the city’s JRB. From 2020 to 2021, the JRB reviewed 189 cases, 80% completed the program, and there was a one-year recidivism rate of 20%. The UCA does not report how many people go before the board each year, but it does say that their “target number is 200 unduplicated youth annually.”  

Since municipalities independently manage their diversionary programs, each town can decide what crimes it sends to JRBs, and which ones are sent to juvenile court.

Statewide, the majority of juveniles are not prosecuted for first-time felony offenses, according to the JJPOC’s data dashboard.  

“What we’re seeing is certain Juvenile Review Boards, depending on where you are in Connecticut, they have their own set of rules,” Cicarella said. “I’ve talked to juvenile probation officers that have, you know, clients, if you will, that juveniles that keep getting arrested, that have done it six, seven times with no accountability.”

Cicarella sees this as a part of a much larger problem. 

“It really impacts everyone on many levels,” Cicarella said. “Forget about just the fear of it happening. Then there’s the financial burden on (victims). Now, how do they get the car back? They have to get it fixed. If something happens, will insurance cover it? How much will they cover? How do they get to work? They have to get a rental car. Those are all kinds of serious things, but a loan may be manageable, but then it’s compounded, because even if your car didn’t get stolen, but there’s a lot of car thefts in your area, your insurance is going to go up.”

Cicarella shared how one of his close friends, a doctor and mother of four, had her car stolen while at a Connecticut gas pump. He says he regularly receives calls from constituents asking why their insurance rates have gone up by sometimes as high as 30%, even if they never got into an accident. 

According to Cicarella, increasing youth accountability would also have long-term benefits.

“It’s extremely dangerous,” Cicarella said. “And more importantly, these kids, without any corrective measures, are never going to see that if you do something wrong, you’re going to get in trouble. And then when they turn 19 years old, 18 years old, and they commit the crime, then they’re going to be caught up in the adult court system, and we could have shown them a different way at an earlier age.”

In the past few years, the juvenile justice movement in Connecticut has expanded to include adult prisoners and offenders. 

In 2023, a bill was passed making people who committed their crimes before the age of 21 eligible for parole after serving at least 12 years or 60% of their sentence if they were sentenced to less than 50 years, or to serve at least 30 years if they were given a longer sentence. This year, Rep. Kadeem Roberts (D-Norwalk) is trying to expand that legislation to offer the opportunity of parole to people who committed their crime before they were 26. This would apply to over 700 current inmates, including 22 individuals convicted of a capital felony, one of whom was previously sentenced to death. 

Cicarella says that he is open to voting for Roberts’  bill, but not as it is written. Like the policies offering diversionary programs to juveniles who commit auto theft, he believes that this bill currently prioritizes the rights of offenders over “law-abiding citizens.”

He has voted for numerous criminal justice reform bills in the past. In 2021, when he was a member of the Appropriations Committee, he voted to advance a bill that enacted numerous criminal justice reforms recommended by the Juvenile Justice and Policy Oversight Committee, but voted against the final bill. In 2023, he voted in favor of a bill that expanded parole eligibility and erased the criminal history of people who committed crimes before the age of 21. 

He’s been on the other side of the debate as well: in 2025, he proposed a bill to limit accelerated rehabilitation for offenders who damaged three or more motor vehicles within two days. This proposal died in committee. 

“I would like to see more balance when passing laws like that may take into consideration the everyday person, so I’m not 100% against it,” he said. “I have to see it in its final form.”

Roberts’ bill, SB 503, received a Joint Favorable determination in the Judiciary Committee and has been referred to the Office of Legislative Research and Office of Fiscal Analysis.

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