No, you shouldn’t feel sad for these kids, throw the book at them. What you should feel is that this is another getting the foot into the door move like they have done with tobacco, to deny property rights to people.
Does it even occur to any of you that the kids just go get another car? In the meantime, government has won the privilege of taking personal property and destroying it.
Perhaps a more appropriate punishment would be to put the car 'in jail' for a number of years. Take the car away and impound it for a set amount of time, during which the kid might grow up a bit. After paying reasonable storage fees, he could get the car back.