Bremerton Police Sgt. Bill Endicott recently came upon a distressed teenage girl whose family troubles had turned her into what he calls a “habitual runaway.”

She told him that her father was a convicted dope dealer, placing Endicott in a predicament.

A year ago, he most likely would have taken her to the county’s secure crisis residential center, where she would be provided counseling and a place away from her father.

He also could have taken her to the non-secure crisis center on Anderson Hill, if her emotional symptoms were less severe.

He no longer has either option, and less than a day after their meeting, she was again on the run.

“Now we have to bring them back home, where they will just run out the back door,” Endicott said. “It’s a handicap for us doing our job by not having a CRC.”

The secure facility, located at Kitsap County Juvenile Court Services, closed down on Feb. 15 after 10 years as a result of the state’s budget cuts.

The state is saving a projected $9.4 million in its 2009-11 budget by closing it, as well as four similar facilities in Seattle, Vancouver, Kennewick and Spokane.

The non-secure residential facility officially closed in July after 30 years, and will be replaced by a temporary homeless shelter for women with children (see story in Dec. 11 edition, or online at www.bremertonpatriot.com). There is no other center for homeless children in Kitsap.

“The homeless program is as important as any and I commend the city and Kitsap Community Resources for making great use of that facility,” said Ned Delmore, director of services at the Kitsap County Juvenile Department. “But there are hundreds of kids who are foster-home eligible in this community and without both of these programs, there’s a real hole now.”

The children who would go to these facilities were non-offender juveniles picked up by law enforcement officials who suspected issues of domestic abuse or other forms of neglect at home.

The secure crisis center had nine beds, six for children from Pierce County and three for children from Kitsap, Delmore said. Most of the kids stayed for about three days, before being transfered back to their homes or put into foster care.

“We probably served 4,000 to 4,500 kids during the 10 years that it was open,” Delmore said.

Bremerton Police Chief Craig Rogers said this time was necessary to evaluate the children, and the children now often run away again before the police have filed a report.

Criminal filings for youths decreased by 25 percent in Kitsap from 2003 to 2007, a development Delmore largely credits to the residential facilities. Without these facilities, it is more difficult to find children who would benefit from the county’s other programs, such as for alcohol and drug abuse and aggressive behavior therapy, he said.

The impact has clearly been felt, though it is not something that is easy to quantify, Endicott said.

“I don’t know if it’s one of those things you can show statistics for,” he said.

The closure of facilities came as no surprise because of their costs and because of the tight security necessary inside the secure residential facility, Delmore said.

“It was controversial from the beginning because of public opinions about locking up non-offender kids,” he said.

Detention manager Bill Truemper underscored the challenges facing the juveniles.

“You had to know what you were getting into with these kids,” he said. “Some of these kids were so damaged they needed to be inpatient hospitalized … We needed to protect them from themselves.”