GROUP EYES TRANSITION HOME FOR MALE YOUTHS

Local professionals and volunteers who work with juvenile offenders hope to establish a transition home for troubled male juveniles who are released from state custody.

The home, which would be called the Eagles' Nest, would be at an as-yet-undetermined site in the Cape Girardeau area, said Jeffrey Krantz, volunteer chairman of a group planning for the home.

Funding is undetermined as are staffing needs, and no budget has been prepared.

"The state relinquishes control at age 17," said Krantz, a Southeast Missouri Hospital executive who volunteers to work with troubled juveniles. "You have youngsters whose original homes are dysfunctional. The state says to a troubled youngster, `You have done very well in our facility, now you're going home.' But the kid frequently says, `But I don't want to go home. That's where the problem is,'" Krantz said.

"I would welcome this kind of facility in our community," said Cape Girardeau Police Chief Howard Boyd Jr. "The problems in these homes, if there is a home at all, is that the parents are exhibiting the same behavior as the juveniles. That's where they learned it. We have to break that cycle or we're going to be sending them to prison when they're 17."

Cape Girardeau County Circuit Judge John Grimm said, "Anything that can be done along these lines is all to the good, so that we don't see them back in court again."

Cape Girardeau County Associate Circuit Judge Ben Lewis agreed. "It sounds like a real good idea," Lewis said. "I have a 14-year-old who is in custody now with a record of robberies going back to age 8. The father is in prison; the mother is gone and irresponsible. Where do I send that youngster? He has no home."

Lewis said: "You talk about gangs; what the gang provides for a youngster is a family. It's a real sick family -- twisted really -- but nonetheless a sort of surrogate family."

Planners envision the transition home beginning with 10 or 12 male juveniles with a volunteer board of directors governing the facility, much like the Women's Safe House. Krantz said funding would be sought through grants from the Department of Family Services and other agencies.

But Connie Chadwick, assistant to the director of the Missouri Division of Social Services in Jefferson City, said it is unclear whether and under what circumstances the division could participate in such funding. "What these people have done is identify a pressing need," she said. "How we meet that need is not yet clear."

Krantz said regulations require that the group have on hand three to four months' operating capital. "That would be something like $30,000 to 40,000," he said.

Krantz and Chadwick said they knew of no similar facility in Missouri.

"Because of the cost, I would anticipate renting a facility and renovating it for our use," Krantz said.

The planning committee is a subcommittee of the Cape Girardeau Area Division of Youth Services Liaison Council. Others involved with the planning committee are Dorothy Arnzen of the Division of Youth Services, Tiffany Parker of the Community Counseling Center, David Shell, Bernice Coar-Cobb and Johnny McGaha.