Youth auto theft: A survey of a general population of Canadian youth

Research on youth auto theft has been based mostly on young offenders who have been caught. The present study involved a sample of 779 youth attending 13 schools across BC, Canada. A sizable proportion (n = 184) of this sample from a general population had thought of or engaged in auto theft behaviours, from thinking about stealing a vehicle, through riding in a stolen vehicle, to being caught stealing a vehicle. This group differed from youth who had neither thought of nor engaged in any form of auto theft in terms of some demographic characteristics, their beliefs about the factors that prevent them from auto theft, their perceptions of young auto thieves’ characteristics and motivations, and their perceptions of the problem and prevention of youth auto theft. These findings have implications for targeting and developing youth auto theft prevention and intervention strategies. The findings also highlight the importance of studying auto theft in the general population