MARIETTA — 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 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…
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