JUVENILE JUSTICE: SIGHTS LOCKED ON NEW DETENTION CENTER AS OLD ONE WEARS DOWN

Big sliding bolts bolster security on worn out cell doors at the Cape Girardeau juvenile detention center on Merriwether Street. But even with a string of added locks, the 30-year-old detention center is running out of time, worn down by age and the constant abuse of juvenile offenders.

Cell doors routinely get kicked by angry teen-agers locked inside. "There's a lot of kicking going on down here," said Pat Colon, detention center administrator.

Crowded into the small, brick and block building are eight cells, cramped offices, a day room and a classroom.

The detention center deals with juvenile offenders in the 32nd Judicial Circuit of Cape Girardeau, Perry and Bollinger counties. All three counties help fund the operation.

Colon and other juvenile officers have their sights locked on building a new detention center to serve 12- to 17-year-old offenders. The building would have expanded cell blocks with electronically locked doors, a courtroom, three classrooms, an indoor recreation area and plenty of office space. There also will be an outdoor recreation area protected by a 16-foot high, tight-mesh metal fence designed to be unclimbable.

As with the current detention center, school work will be emphasized. Juveniles spend Monday through Friday mornings and afternoons in class. That routine wouldn't change.

The 40,000-square-foot building will replace the existing detention center as well as juvenile offices at the Common Pleas Courthouse Annex. The structure will be about four times the size of the current detention center.

The Cape Girardeau County Commission last year paid $275,000 for nine acres at the end of Progress Street in an industrial area west of South Kingshighway as a site for a new juvenile center.

Architect Tom Holshouser of Cape Girardeau currently is drawing up final plans for the $4 million project.

Construction could begin in April and take a year to complete, Holshouser said.

But finances first must be worked out and the final plans approved by the Cape Girardeau County Commission. County Auditor H. Weldon Macke said it may be later in the year before a contractor is hired and construction begins.

The commission intends to issue revenue bonds. Macke said commissioners want to pay off the bonds with money from fees generated by keeping other counties' juvenile offenders and county revenue that is being set aside for the project over a period of years. The bonds likely would be paid off over 10 to 15 years.

State steps in

Randy Rhodes, Cape Girardeau County's chief juvenile officer, said new center is badly needed. But the project never would have surfaced if the state hadn't taken over paying the salaries of juvenile officers in Missouri as of July 1999. Previously, counties had to foot the bill.

A new detention center means added staff to meet federal and state requirements, a cost the county couldn't have covered, Rhodes said.

The new center will nearly double his staff, from 28 to 52 employees.

The increased staff will include more detention officers. "You don't leave kids unsupervised," said Rhodes. "They prey on each other."

Lesson to teens

The new center would have six holding cells for juvenile offenders such as shoplifters, who would be held overnight in many cases rather than released to their parents as is currently done.

Rhodes said such short-term incarceration could send a message to troubled teens to steer clear of crime.

With the new center, juvenile offenders could appear in court without ever leaving the building. Currently, they have to be transported to the Common Pleas Courthouse for appearances before the juvenile court judge.

The new juvenile center won't look like a prison. The exterior of the building will be brick with a curved glass front entrance with an atrium.

"It is going to look like a real inviting office building on the front," said Holshouser.

The largely concrete structure will be two stories on the front end where offices and the juvenile courtroom will be housed. The detention area will be 1 1/2 stories tall, with the cells on the first level.

The mechanical and electrical equipment will be housed in the half story above the cell blocks "so it is out of harm's way and easy to maintain," Holshouser said. Light bulbs, for example, would be changed without having to go into the cells.

The detention area will include three eight-cell blocks, each with its own commons area and possibly a fourth unit of eight cells.

Even if the fourth unit isn't installed, the building would be built with enough space to add it at a later date, the architect said.

Rhodes said the units will allow violent juveniles to be kept in one unit, girls in another, and non-violent boys in a third block of cells. Each cell is designed to hold a single juvenile.

Rhodes said the detention cells could be 70 to 80 percent full within two years.

The cells will have 10-foot tall steel ceilings backed by concrete. Everything from sprinkler heads to the light fixtures are designed to withstand inmate vandalism.

Still, Rhodes knows there always will be some damage in detention centers as juvenile offenders take out their anger on their surroundings.

Holshouser figures the new detention center can withstand the punishment. "It would be pretty well a medium security prison," he said.