100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Joy riding’ falls under eye of the law

Local courts were cracking down on the widespread practice of “joy-riding,” or, to use the legal term, auto theft.

The targets of this crackdown were four teenage boys, who were sentenced to one year in the county jail. They were accused, among other things, of stealing a local attorney’s car and driving it to Montana.

At sentencing, the court was filled with “sobbing mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters.”

When the prosecutor accused one of the boys of attempting to steal “four or five automobiles,” his mother cried, “That is a lie. Oh, that is a lie.”

The judge was unmoved. He said that, if it was in his power, he would put an end “to the practice of boys stealing machines for joy rides.”

In fact, he said, he would have liked to impose a sentence even greater than the law allows.

He did show some lenience to two of the boys. He said if they conducted themselves properly in jail, he would cut their sentences to nine months.

He was not inclined to do so for the two other boys. He said that “they have taken the matter of their arrest as a joke” and were “not frank” in their statements to the court.