Georgia AG pushing for new mandatory minimum sentencing for gang recruiters
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is pushing for the state legislature to pass new mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for those who are convicted of recruiting people into gangs.
Senate Bill 44 passed the Georgia Senate Monday, Feb. 13, 31-22.
The bill would require judges to impose prison sentences of at least five years on those convicted of recruiting gang members. It would prevent those sentenced with the crime from having their sentences suspended or serving them through probation.
The legislation would require tougher penalties for those who recruit someone under age 17 or someone with a disability to a gang, requiring at least a 10-year sentence.
“We are seeing more and more children being recruited into gangs. … We’ve got adults that are recruiting kids into these gangs,” Carr told the MDJ this week.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has made cracking down on gangs central to his legislative agenda this session.
“And so what we have said is … If you are an adult that’s going to recruit a child into a gang, we fundamentally as a state disagree with that and abhor that, and you are going to have a minimum amount of time that you’re going to spend in prison. … It is destroying a child’s life. If you bring a child into a gang, you’re going to end up in jail, or worse, you could end up dead,” Carr said.
The bill would allow judges to avoid mandatory minimum sentences in some circumstances. Judges could impose reduced or suspended sentences if an accused person provides “substantial assistance” to help identify or convict another person of gang recruitment — in other words, a plea bargain.
Senate Democrats opposed SB 44. Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, a former solicitor general in Richmond County, argued it could have the unintended consequence of reducing sentences for those guilty of serious crimes and putting tough penalties on those convicted of relatively minor crimes.
A low-level gang member is unlikely to have useful information that would lead to the identification or conviction of a senior gang member, Jones said.
“The person who doesn’t know anything … they go to jail five years [because] they can’t tell on anybody. … They have nothing to offer,” he said.
On the flip side, someone who has committed a serious crime might have a great deal of information that could help convict someone else, thereby garnering a hardened criminal a reduced sentence, Jones said.
“What we’re going to be doing is unleashing persons who probably are more culpable,” he said.
Jones also suggested lawmakers should trust judges and prosecutors to make good decisions.
Almost all Senate Republicans voted for the bill. However, Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, crossed party lines to vote against it.
“We have far too many plea bargains in this state, and this will only increase the amount,” Moore told Capitol Beat News Service just after last Monday’s vote. “Plea bargains allow the innocent to get improper justice and the guilty to get less than deserved. This is not the way to solve street gang crimes.”
Carr pushed back on those concerns, saying the bill stipulates that plea bargains would not be available to gang leaders.
The attorney general also pitched the bill as an important next step to combat violent crime across the state. He said it would build upon the work being done by the state’s Gang Prosecution Unit.
“Gangs don’t care about what the city or the county line are, and so you’ve got to be able to work with federal, state and local law enforcement, and to have a statewide footprint matters,” Carr said.
The unit formed last year when the General Assembly passed legislation authorizing the attorney general’s office to work with local law enforcement agencies to investigate gang activity. Lawmakers approved $1.3 million in startup funds for the effort.
Since its creation last summer, the unit has indicted 50 alleged gang members across the state, including seven defendants in Cobb County.
Gangs, Carr said, are operating all over Georgia, including in jails and prisons.
Violent crime committed by gangs disproportionately affects lower income, racially diverse and immigrant populations, Carr said.
The gang unit allows the state to assist local district attorneys whose offices are smaller and have less resources. Law enforcement agencies have sometimes had “turf battles” over prosecution, Carr said, but recent laws have helped create a “golden age” of partnerships in the state.
In recent years, some elected officials, including Republicans, have moved away from mandatory minimums and other harsh penalties. Former Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who appointed Carr, signed bipartisan legislation to reform the criminal justice system.
The AG argued that SB 44 and other efforts to crack down on gangs are not a departure from Deal’s legacy. The state will continue its efforts to steer nonviolent offenders, people with mental health issues, and people with addiction issues toward a better life.
People who commit violent crimes, he said, don’t deserve the same support.
“I think what he (Deal) did, particularly with accountability courts, it’s just transformative. It truly changes lives … It’s important to remember, when Gov. Deal did his criminal justice reform, he basically said, ‘Look, we’ve got to draw a distinction between those that we’re mad at, and those that we’re scared of, and get help for those that we’re mad at, so that we can deal with those that we’re scared of.’”
One of the prosecutors in the unit — Rryan Pieochocinski — came from the Cobb District Attorney’s Office, and is prosecuting cases in Cobb, Carr said.
The mandatory minimums are also needed, the AG argues, because “unfortunately, there are some DAs around the state that just simply don’t want to enforce certain laws.
“Depending on who you talk to … between 60 and 90% of all violent crime is gang-affiliated,” Carr said.
The AG added that Cobb police, who he met with prior to sitting down with the MDJ, estimate that gangs are responsible for 70% of stranger-on-stranger crime in the county.