Beginning March 2, the Cascade County Juvenile Detention Center will take over processing and fingerprinting juvenile offenders from the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, according to a county release.

“This is an extremely vital service as it will allow law enforcement officers to be back out on patrol much quicker after arresting a felony youth offender. Prior to the JDC offering this service, law enforcement often had to wait hours for the jail staff to move inmates out of the booking area since it is a requirement for youth to be sight and sound separate from adults. The facility would then be required to go into lockdown until the fingerprinting process was complete. This was a huge inconvenience for jail staff and law enforcement,” according to the release from Shanna Bulik-Chism, JDC administrator.

Officers and deputies would have to wait for a juvenile to be fingerprinted, then transport them to the JDC.

Starting next week, the JDC will now process all juvenile offenders for misdemeanors and felonies who are arrested and brought to secure detention. That will also assist in any missing person’s investigations, identification and other matters, according to the JDC release.

Only youth who are being tried as adulst will have their fingerprints transmitted to the Division of Criminal Investigation at the Montana Department of Justice, according to the release.

The Cascade County JDC will be the only juvenile facility in the state that is now processing fingerprints of juveniles, according to the release.