{"id":33056,"date":"2023-07-06T13:12:40","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T19:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/penalty-for-stealing-a-car-is-no-longer-linked-to-how-much-the-car-is-worth\/"},"modified":"2023-07-06T19:12:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T19:12:40","slug":"penalty-for-stealing-a-car-is-no-longer-linked-to-how-much-the-car-is-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/penalty-for-stealing-a-car-is-no-longer-linked-to-how-much-the-car-is-worth\/","title":{"rendered":"Penalty for stealing a car is no longer linked to how much the car is worth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Durango Police Department is giving away steering-wheel locks in an effort to curb Colorado\u2019s car theft problem. (Garret Jaros\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Garret Jaros<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado is changing how it punishes people for car theft, and will focus on the behavior of the offender instead of the value of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

A new state law that took effect July 1 will bring harsher penalties for people who repeatedly steal cars, or use them to commit other crimes.<\/p>\n

For repeat offenders \u2013 those who have been convicted of car theft at least twice before \u2013 prosecutors can now charge them with a Class 3 felony, punishable by four to 12 years in prison. People who steal a car and damage it, take it out of state or use it to commit another crime, will face two to six years in prison.<\/p>\n

The law allows for a lower penalty for joyriders, people who steal cars briefly and commit no other crimes with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard a lot of concerns of: What if it\u2019s less than 24 hours? What if it\u2019s returned undamaged?\u201d said GOP state Rep. Matt Soper, explaining why they kept the ability for prosecutors to treat some car thefts as a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

The bipartisan law was a response to criticism that Colorado\u2019s previous approach to car theft was ineffectual and unfair.<\/p>\n

Under the previous law, the severity of the crime was based on the value of the vehicle. Stealing a car worth less than $2,000 was generally only a misdemeanor. Democratic state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger said it was clear that approach ignored the actual impact on victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cA crime is a crime,\u201d Zenzinger said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a moderate income person, a low income person \u2013 if your car has been stolen, it\u2019s going to impact your life, and sometimes pretty dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado has earned a place of infamy for car thefts in recent years. The business-oriented think tank Common Sense Institute found that Colorado led the nation in car thefts in 2021 and averaged about 4,000 thefts a month for the first half of 2022. Car thefts have declined since then, according to Colorado State Patrol, which trumpeted the new law as a help to future enforcement.<\/p>\n

Zenzinger and other lawmakers said they got involved in the issue after hearing from numerous constituents across the state about their own experiences with auto thefts and asking for stricter penalties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was receiving emails about this almost daily,\u201d she said. \u201cEven my own vehicle, while it was not stolen, it was broken into. And I think when you become a victim of a crime like that, it really sends it home. When you realize, \u2018it can happen to anybody. And it is happening!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill was supported unanimously in the state Senate but opposed by a handful of House Democrats, concerned that strengthening penalties could lead to more people with felonies on their criminal records without meaningfully reducing car thefts. They argued addressing the root causes of crime would have more impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a false set of options to suggest folks are asking for more criminalization, when we\u2019re not giving them other options,\u201d said Rep. Elisabeth Epps during a committee hearing on the bill. \u201cThis is a step in the wrong direction, and it\u2019s a step that we\u2019re going to be paying for for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new law was developed by the state\u2019s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Coalition and supported by a number of local governments and law enforcement organizations. It was opposed by the ACLU and criminal defense lawyers.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

law focuses on behavior of offender rather than value of vehicle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,14,15,168,28,107,74],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-colorado-state-house-of-representatives","tag-colorado-state-senate","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-laws","tag-theft"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33056"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}