In a press conference last week, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office announced that Monroe County has seen an over 300% increase in stolen vehicles in 2023 over the same time last year.

“It’s unacceptable,” said Monroe County Sherrif’s Office Undersheriff Korey Brown. “It has to be unacceptable to us as a community. How do we say that’s OK?”

What You Need To Know

  • Officials say there have been 2,170 stolen vehicles in Monroe County so far this year

  • Of those vehicles, 813 are Kias and 749 of the vehicles are Hyundais

  • Thirty juveniles arrested in stolen vehicle cases are repeat offenders

A few weeks ago, Monroe County announced the need for expedited appearance tickets and more intervention services, but Brown said that more needs to be done.

“We need a 24-hour facility where we can bring them where they will get intervention services, where we mandate that their family comes in and gets intervention services,” Brown said. “We need to hold parents accountable.”

“We hear the pleas and the cries for help and they come from our police officers, and they come from public safety officials, but they’re also coming from concerned residents and their loved ones,” said Monroe County Executive Adam Bello.

Violent teens are now sent to a children’s detention center, which has a limited ability to house juveniles who are committing these crimes.

“The state criminal justice reforms were designated to protect a segment of juvenile and youth offenders from having to go to jail, but what it didn’t do is give an alternative to hold dangerous teens accountable,” Bello said.

This is why Bello’s administration has announced a historic investment in the sheriff’s office that will add 40 new sworn positions and create a regional investigative operations center for multi-jurisdictional crime.

“The cost of these crimes to our community has no price tag,” Brown said. “Innocent lives will continue to be affected and potentially lost if we continue at this rate, not to mention the lives of those who are continually repeating these crimes.”

This announcement comes only a few weeks after the Monroe County Probation Department announced the Juvenile Enhanced Diversion Stabilization Program, which is aimed at addressing the increase in juvenile and youth crime in Monroe County.

“It’s helping to hold teens accountable for their actions, but what it doesn’t have is the mandate of services needed through state law,” Bello said. “More has to happen.”

The juvenile offender transitional facility that is being called for will change state law to require intervention services, something the Juvenile Enhanced Diversion Stabilization Program does not do.

“The community wants to know, what are you going to do different? We have these meetings — what are we doing different?” Brown said. “What we need to do different is we need to start holding these kids accountable that are doing this. There has to be accountability for this behavior. We need to give the parents and the child the services they need to prevent them from continuing to do this.”

It’s something officials argue can’t be done without amendments to the state’s current bail laws to give agencies more power to issue punishments after juveniles are arrested, as well as grants to build the new facility.

“Without the authority under state law to mandate it we’re up against a wall,” said Bello.