;

Number is less than half of Houston's

Runaways pose police dilemma here

By George E. Condon Jr.

Although small tragedies loomed occasionally, tales of runaways here were almost always treated lightly.

Would the runaway be spanked when he returned home? What adventures had he experienced? These were the absorbing questions.

Houston, and its grisly tableau of perversion ending in at least 27 murders, has changed ail that.

Although Cleveland officials maintain it is unlikely such mass murders of runaways could happen here without detection, The Plain Dealer uncovered reports yesterday of desperate and naive runaways forced to cooperate in prostitution and homosexual games.

Police and private investigators here, while insisting they are doing better than did Houston officials, concede the runaway problem is almost without solution.

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Cleveland experiences nowhere near the number of runaways reported in Houston.

Houston's police chief said his city is annually beset by more than 5,000 runaways. Cleveland police report fewer than half that number.

Cleveland Police Lt. George E. Trammel said 767 boys have been reported missing this year. Only 100 of them, he said, are still unaccounted for. Many of them were only recently reported missing.

More than 1,000 girls ran away from Cleveland homes last year and there were 1,008 reports of missing boys in 1972. Neither figure is drastically different from the year before, police said.

In the city and the suburbs, police said runaway children usually

Return home-on their own-after about a week. In most cases, the runaway left home after a fight with parents and never

left the city, preferring to stay with neighbors or friends.

Habitual runaways swell police statistics until officials tire of returning them home and finally send them to court for a stay in the detention home, police said.

"This is quite common," Trammel said. "There's nothing we as police can do with a kid hellbent on staying away from home. What are you going to do with a kid who runs away from home? You catch him and he says, 'Take me home, but I'm going to run away again and you can't keep me there.' Our hands are tied."

Police do not search for girls under 12 years old because "we just don't have the time or the manpower to find them,” Sgt. Rose Mary Holmes said.

Trammell does not agree with Houston authorities, who said police cannot catch runaways.

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