ATLANTA – A bill authorizing Georgia’s attorney general to investigate and prosecute gang activity statewide cleared the state House of Representatives Monday.
House Bill 1134, which passed 101-56 and now moves to the Georgia Senate, follows Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposal to fund the creation of a new Gang Prosecution Unit in the attorney general’s office.
The fiscal 2023 state budget includes more than $1.3 million to add a dozen prosecutors to the attorney general’s staff to handle gang cases.
“Sixty percent of all violent crime committed in the state of Georgia is gang motivated,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula, told his House colleagues Monday. “Addressing the gang issue is addressing violent crime.”
House Democrats questioned whether beefing up the attorney general’s office is the best way to reduce gang activity.
Rep. William Boddie, D-East Point, said the money earmarked for the attorney general would be better spent locally.
“All crimes, including gang crimes, should be prosecuted locally by locally elected district attorneys,” he said.
But Efstration said the state level is the right place for targeting gangs, as was the case when Gov. Brian Kemp cracked down on human trafficking in Georgia.
“Gangs are multi-jurisdictional,” Efstration said. “Involvement from the state is not only appropriate but needed.”
This story available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.