Yesterday in Seattle 3 teens two boys one girl all armed followed a woman home and stole her car at gunpoint. The police got them after a chase and a crash.
This is not isolated. Why are teens today across demogrphics commiting these kinds of crimes?
Why do you imagine that the plural of "anecdote" is "data"?
TWOC-ing was one of the go-to entertainments for bored teenagers in my home town in the UK in the 1980s and '90s. It's not new, and as far as I can determine, it's not growing in frequency.
What has changed is the widespread adoption of immobiliser technology by car makers, so that stealing a car now requires you to steal the keys - which makes an interaction with the owner more likely, and therefore increases the probability of violence or the threat of violence.
You make it sound like the increase in violence or the threat, is the fault of the car makers.
It is.
Defending against crime often has unintended consequences.
Criminals adapt to the measures taken to stop them, and will typically choose to avoid confrontation or violence where possible.
When you make it harder to commit crime without confrontation or violence, confrontation and violence will increase.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but it does mean you have no right to be surprised by increasing violence when you do, nor to assume that it's a sign of some kind of widespread moral collapse or breakdown of society.
Criminals target the weakest part of any system. If you harden the mechanical elements, you make it more likely that the human elements will be seen as the softest target.
People used to break into bank vaults by smashing cutting or digging their way in. Banks responded by making the vaults stronger, so criminals learned to unlock them. The locks were improved, and the robbers moved on to using explosives. The vaults were made blast-proof, and criminals started robbing banks at gunpoint. Vaults were equipped with time locks, so criminals started taking bank workers families hostage.
It's an arms race; And the human element is the hardest to protect, so ultimately it becomes the main target for criminals.
I don't know what the answer is, but I am damn sure it's not to pretend that the problem isn't real.
Criminals are lazy. Psychopathic criminals are very rare; Mostly they are only violent when it's the easiest remaining option that achieves their objective.