Cape County looks into consolidated juvenile office

Local juvenile authorities working under three roofs could come together under one, as the Cape Girardeau County Commission is taking steps to build a new office for the 32nd Judicial District Juvenile Assessment Center.

About 20 employees in the juvenile division that serves Bollinger, Cape Girardeau and Perry counties are housed in two spaces for offices -- in the annex of the Common Pleas Courthouse and the former juvenile detention center on Merriwether Street in Cape Girardeau. The juvenile officers use a third location, the Echo Center on Armstrong Drive, for some programs. Because more staff are expected to be needed in the next one to five years based on past growth, according to the commission, more space is needed.

On Thursday, the commission voted to advertise for proposals to design and build a new office.

Associate Commissioner Charlie Herbst said the office likely would be built on nine acres the county owns on Progress Street parallel to South Kingshighway south of the Shawnee Parkway. In 2001, the location was considered for a juvenile detention center, but plans fell through after county officials and juvenile authorities couldn't agree on the project's size.

Cape Girardeau County also no longer detains juvenile offenders because its detention center, the Merriwether Street building, was among several in the state shut down after state budget cuts in 2011. Still, many alternative activities for juveniles who commit less serious offenses are offered at the assessment center, said Randall Rhodes, chief juvenile officer of the 32nd Judicial Circuit.

Detention cells are being used for storage Friday at the 32nd Judicial Districts Juvenile Assessment Center in Cape Girardeau. (Adam Vogler)

"When they closed it, we wondered what we would do with the building," he said, "but there is actually more going on here now than when the cell block was open. It's busier now than it's ever been."

Assessment center employees provide supervision for juvenile offenders, programs for suspended students, family therapy and other services. Offenders who need to be detained are sent to detention facilities where those types of centers remain, such as in Mississippi and Stoddard counties. About 500 juveniles use the assessment center each year.

Herbst said the county would pay for the design and construction of a new office from a capital improvements fund that contains money from a 2011 refinancing of bonds used to build the county jail in 2002. Last week, the fund contained a little more than $1.1 million, but that does not reflect the amount to be spent solely on a new juvenile office. The fund was intended to buy and renovate the former federal building at 339 Broadway into a county building for courts and other operations. But since an attempt to buy the building last year failed, the money is being spent on renovations for county buildings, property acquisitions and other uses that fall under capital improvements. The county chips in some money for assessment center programs. So does the Cape Girardeau School District, because the assessment center runs a classroom where suspended students are supervised by a teacher to help keep up with classwork.

Deputy juvenile officer Tim Lane works in his office Friday at the 32nd Judicial Districts Juvenile Assessment Center in Cape Girardeau. (Adam Vogler)

Condition of the Merriwether Street office also is cause for the county to consider new space for the juvenile authorities -- among its problems during the last several years have been a leaking roof and mold.

No plans for the space at the Common Pleas annex or the Merriwether Street office are in place if the county builds a new office, Herbst said. Whether the space at the Echo Center, a day youth resource center, would be needed also remains unanswered for now. Rhodes said the assessment center likes the partnership it has with the Echo Center but program space included in a new office would be welcome. Herbst said program space could be included in the design for a new office if the budget allowed.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

325 Merriwether St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

44 N. Lorimier St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Progress Street, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

3445 Armstrong Drive, Cape Girardeau, Mo.