DETENTION CENTER RENOVATED TO ACCOMODATE JUVENILE CRIME

Time served at Cape Girardeau's Juvenile Detention Center is designed to be tough.

The cells are barren with small, wire-covered windows. The day room consists of a television, foosball table and plastic chairs. The small yard is enclosed with a high fence topped off by barbed wire.

At one time, juvenile detention centers were a bit more friendly, but times have changed. Now officials have to be more concerned about protecting the public than making the offender comfortable.

The last escape from the juvenile center was three years ago, when two inmates scurried over the fence to freedom during an exercise break. The two were caught and became the reasons for barbed wire on top of the fence.

Even though several changes were made to improve safety, detention administrator Lance Tollison and juvenile officer Randy Rhodes feel there should be more. They have been before the Cape Girardeau County Commission on several occasions in the past few months, asking for funding.

First, they want a one-key system for the whole center, freeing Tollison from his impressive array of keys for each door's lock. Because the detention facility used to house administrative offices, too, some of the rooms have only simple, push-button locks.

Tollison and Rhodes also want security cameras for the day room, visiting room, exercise yard and other areas to help staff keep an eye on the delinquents. Tollison, who began working part time at the center in 1983, noted that offenders today need more watching.

"The type of kids we get now are more sophisticated," he said. "They come to the facility and try to make homemade weapons out of things like toothbrushes. They want to claim a gang affiliation."

Bids are out for the locks and cameras. A request for a car with a caged-in back seat for transporting violent juveniles was filled recently.

Most of the juveniles in the center -- children from pre-teen to age 16 -- are there for one to eight days awaiting a court date. They stay in one of eight available cells, but the center can fill 10 cells if necessary. Eight cells are designed for average offenders and the other two for violent residents who try to destroy the fixtures.

Tollison said one inmate later certified as an adult, Thomas Vonneedo Jr., 15, tried to short-circuit the wires in his cell to electrocute staff members when they turned on the light. He was moved to one of the special cells and later ended up in the Cape Girardeau County Jail.

Because the facility also serves Perry and Bollinger counties, it reaches capacity several times a year. Then children have to be transported to nearby facilities in Bloomfield and St. Louis while awaiting their court dates.

The most common charges are property damage and stealing. After going to court for those offenses, most juveniles are sentenced to probation or a more permanent facility.

Tollison said he hopes a completely new Juvenile Detention Center would be in the county commission's five-year plan. The current center on Merriwether Street is about 20 years old.

Commissioner Larry Bock said he and the other commissioners would have to take a lot into consideration before deciding on a new facility.

"We would have to look at a projected cost, how many juveniles we house there, how safe it is and what the future might hold," he said.