Australia’s peak car theft reduction body is ramping up its efforts to rehabilitate young thieves in a bid to bring down the level of short-term thefts.

The National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council’s (NMVTRC) three-year strategic plan outlines a need to work with young people to turn them away from crime.

“This can have an impact on short-term thefts, because we know that by the time some of these young people reach their late teens they have stolen hundreds of cars,” Executive Director Ray Carroll told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “Every time we are changing one of them, we are saving people a fortune.”

He says the majority of short-term thefts are youth-related and the council is committed to changing youth behaviours, because there is strong evidence that the current juvenile justice system is failing in its rehabilitation efforts.

“They often come out of incarceration even more determined to offend, and a lot of research supports our belief that the best way to turn these people around is to get them engaged in education and employment programs,” Mr Carroll said.

The NMVTRC’s strategic plan aims to continue developing youth programs with Mission Australia and other agencies to turn this growing trend around.

Its implementation coincides with research showing the majority of vehicles stolen for short-term thefts are recovered within 10km from where they were stolen.

The NMVTRC also believes the introduction of a new written-off vehicle system will help to reduce the potential for car rebirthing.

Mr Carroll says this is being implemented in conjunction with other programs, with more stringent vehicle inspection standards “narrowing the funnel for opportunities for rebirthing and making it more difficult for non-legitimate repairers to slip through the cracks”.