ST PAUL, Minn. — At a time when auto thefts continued to surge in most major U.S. cities, the city of St. Paul is drawing attention for bucking the trend in 2023.
According to the Council on Criminal Justice, a non-partisan think tank that tracks yearly crime trends, motor vehicle theft has risen by 105% nationally since 2019.
Experts say motor vehicle thefts really took off in 2021, after social media posts exposing security flaws in KIA and Hyundai vehicles started going viral among young people.
Which is what makes St. Paul so intriguing. While motor vehicle thefts continued to increase in 26 of 34 cities cited in the new 2023 report, auto thefts in St. Paul fell by 39%. That was the biggest decline among all 34 cities tracked.
According to St. Paul Police, that trend continues in 2024.
"We're already seeing a 33% reduction in our auto theft this year," said St. Paul Police Sgt. Mike Ernster. "That equates to 80 less people that have had their cars stolen so far in 2024."
Ernster credits a three-pronged approach that begins with prevention efforts aimed at the hardest hit neighborhoods.
"We're going into these areas and we're very intentional about talking to these victims, some of these auto thefts are crimes of opportunity, so we're trying to remove that opportunity," Ernster said. "Talk to them about what's going on in their neighborhood, so they can talk to their neighbors also."
But the communication doesn't stop there.
"It's really not that complicated," said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi. "We actually know who a lot of these kids are."
Choi says early intervention is the second prong, and says a key grant from the Department of Commerce in 2021 helped make it possible.
"We don't want just more prosecutors, we don't want just more cops, we also want community navigators to be part of the solution and we want to figure out ways to engage families," said Choi. "And I think that's a big part of why some of the good outcomes are happening."
Which brings us to the third prong.
"Without the arrests, we can't do the intervention and prevention," said Ramsey County Undersheriff Mike Martin.
Martin says focused enforcement alongside St. Paul Police has also helped them solve more cases at a time when rates nationally have seen steep declines since 2019.
"If police aren't able to solve those offense, identify who is committing them, it also places a barrier to get some of these young people assistance," said CCJ research specialist, Ernesto Lopez. "But they have a high clearance rate and if St. Paul is engaging in a program directed at youth, that could be promising."
You don't have to look across the nation to see how St Paul is an outlier, Lopez says you can just look across the Mississippi River. According to the same report, the city of Minneapolis saw a 26% increase in motor vehicle threats in 2023.
Erdahl: "As someone who is watching those numbers and these trends, is that surprising?"
Lopez: "It is somewhat surprising, because we have typically see similar patterns in bordering cities. But it may not be surprising if certain strategies in St. Paul are effective and they are displacing vehicle thefts. If people, who are committing these crimes, are moving from St. Paul to commit those crimes in Minneapolis that wouldn't be surprising."
"We have definitely seen some displacement over to Hennepin County because the offenders know that, here in Ramsey County, we are working on them, we know who they are, they will be held accountable," Martin said. "But we have seen Hennepin County, and Minneapolis now, have reached out to us and we're starting to work with them more closely, and I have a feeling we'll be able to reduce metro-wide auto thefts."
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