'Astonishing' increase in car theft charges as juvenile criminal cases surge in King County

Car theft charges brought against youth were up by more than 500% in King County during 2023. Serious felonies, including violent crime, were also up significantly.

Car theft is just one charge behind a 61% increase in juvenile criminal bookings in 2023, including violent crime, gun possession, and burglary.

Stephanie Trollen, juvenile operations manager for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said the “astonishing” jump in car theft charges came after a simple trick for stealing many Kia and Hyundai models went viral on TikTok.

Violent criminal charges were also up dramatically, with an average of nearly one serious felony referral each day in 2023, including armed robbery, shootings, sexual assault, and some burglary charges. The most serious felony charges went up 26% from 2022, and up 37% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

“That’s not a surprise to anybody. We see it in our work every day — there’s more cases that are coming in involving young people with guns, committing violent crimes,” said Jimmy Hung, the juvenile division chief prosecutor for King County.

There were 631 bookings into juvenile detention in 2023, compared to 416 in 2022. Youth are only booked into detention if they are accused of serious misdemeanors and felonies.

Trollen said she considers juvenile car theft often the precursor to more criminal activity.

“Once the kid is on wheels, they’re mobile and that can often lead to other and more serious crimes. I think all of that is pretty related,” Trollen said.

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The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said they did not have immediate access to the number of specific charges filed each year. However, court records show that prosecutors filed 74 first-degree robbery charges against youth in 2023, up from 42 the previous year.

“The two things that really stand out to me are just the sheer proliferation of guns that we're seeing, and the really young age of some of these people who are having cases filed against them in court,” said King County Superior Court Judge Melinda Young.

“It feels like it's getting younger, so we're talking about 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds. That's really alarming,” Young said.

“I think that knee jerk reaction in the community is to say, ‘What's wrong with these children?’ As opposed to saying, ‘What are we doing to create an environment of support?’” said Karen Pillar, advocacy and policy director at Team Child, pointing to services like education and mental health care.

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A major factor, Judge Young said, in preventing juvenile crime is the lack of residential treatment facilities for youth with substance use and mental health disorders.

“We have youth who have severe mental health issues such that they are a danger out in the community,” Judge Young said. “Secure detention is not the answer to that.”

Still, that is often where those youth end up because treatment beds are rarely available, she said.

“It breaks my heart that we know exactly what this person needs, we know that they can get better, we know that they won’t be a risk to the community anymore, but we can't get them where they need to go,” Young said.

The dramatic rise in bookings — and violence — has further strained resources at the county’s juvenile detention facility. The number of youth in the county’s four-year-old detention center has risen as high as 67 on one recent day, Hung said, “which I think is a record for this new facility.”

“Staff injuries are on the rise, youth injuries and assaults are on the rise. We’ve found several shanks,” said Jason Smith, who works at the jail and represents the King County Juvenile Detention Guild. The facility has 15 unfilled staff positions and frequently has to put all youth on lockdown due to staffing shortages.

“Besides having a lot of time and isolation and solitary, they're not getting meaningful educational services” in detention with the population so high, Pillar said. The center now frequently cancels classes for youth in detention because there aren’t enough staff.

The sharp increase in the number of youth locked up comes as the county grapples with how to fulfill King County Executive Dow Constantine’s promise to end secure youth detention and close the youth detention center by the end of 2025.

The county has not yet determined a plan for how to achieve that goal.

“I think we are ahead of ourselves with that,” Judge Young said. “That's a really hard thing.”

In contrast to last year’s juvenile trend, adult jail bookings in King County last year declined by 1 percent.