Citizen Portal
Sign In

Committee approves bill to require DJJ fingerprinting of juveniles for SLED submission

South Carolina House Judiciary Committee · February 24, 2026

Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts

Subscribe
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

H5120 would change the statute so DJJ must fingerprint juveniles at admission and submit fingerprints to SLED; committee voted the bill out favorably with assurances fingerprints remain sealed and subject to juvenile expungement rules.

Chairman Johnson told the committee that House Bill H5120 replaces the word "may" with "must" in current law so that DJJ is required to fingerprint juveniles as part of the admission process and submit those prints to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED).

"What this bill does is it replaces the word may with must require DJJ to fingerprint the individual as part of the admission process," Johnson said, adding the prints would remain sealed and used only for law‑enforcement purposes and would be subject to existing juvenile expungement laws.

Johnson said the statute previously allowed fingerprints to be optional and sometimes led to prints not being taken; the change is intended to standardize admission procedures. The bill also removes an obsolete code section about school principal notifications and updates wording from "personnel" to "employee."

With no questions, the committee ordered a roll call and reported H5120 favorably. The chair announced the committee vote: 21 in favor, 0 opposed, and 4 not voting.