BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana will no longer route 17-year-olds through the adult criminal justice system when they are arrested for non-violent crimes.

Those teenagers will be steered to the juvenile prosecution system, under the “Raise the Age” law approved in 2016 and partially taking effect Friday.

The measure was promoted as a way to rehabilitate young offenders and lessen repeat offenses. Louisiana was one of a handful of states that automatically treated 17-year-olds as adults for prosecution purposes.

To ready for the change, the Office of Juvenile Justice will partially open a new youth lock-up in mid-March and has hired more probation officers. It is working on plans to expand alternatives to detention, such as pre-trial diversion programs.

Seventeen-year-old offenders charged with violent crimes will move to the juvenile system in July 2020.