Atlanta<\/a> are up 50% so far this year over the same period in 2020, while rapes have increased by 82%. The city also has also seen a surge in incidents of illegal street racing, prompting the General Assembly to pass legislation this year to criminalize organizing, promoting or participating in street races.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGov. Brian Kemp this week committed up to $5 million of the Governor\u2019s Emergency Fund to support the state Department of Public Safety\u2019s efforts to bring crime in Atlanta under control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Wednesday\u2019s kickoff meeting was to begin developing a list of witnesses who will be called to testify during a series of hearings the committee plans to hold next month and in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Committee members suggested a wide array of potential witnesses, including representatives of police departments, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, business owners and residents of neighborhoods plagued with high crime rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several lawmakers said the coronavirus pandemic has contributed to the rise in crime by increasing poverty among Georgians who have lost their jobs only to suffer delays in receiving unemployment benefits from the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others said more long-term causes are to blame, including the proliferation of mental illness and the easy access to firearms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of crimes being committed are because of the gun laws we have on the books,\u201d said Rep. Gloria Frazier, D-Hephzibah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Clint Crowe, R-Jackson, said another factor behind the rise in crime is the growing number of vacancies in local police departments because discouraged officers are leaving the profession in droves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are many, many open positions,\u201d said Crowe, a former police officer. \u201cBut more important, we need to address the morale of the officers who are still there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting the handcuffs on the wrong people,\u201d Collins added. \u201cWe\u2019ve handcuffed law enforcement for way too long. \u2026 They feel like they can\u2019t do their jobs because leadership doesn\u2019t have their backs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several committee members pointed to rising crime rates in other major U.S. cities as evidence the problem isn\u2019t limited to Atlanta. At the same time, they said, crime also is affecting communities in rural Georgia, including a rise in gang activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need to find out what it would take to put this ship back right in the water,\u201d said Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have strong public safety, you have chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia lawmakers Wednesday launched an effort to examine what\u2019s behind a rise in violent crime in metro Atlanta and consider potential solutions. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be politics in this,\u201d state Rep. J Collins, R-Villa Rica, chairman of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security, told committee members. \u201c[But] this committee wants to dig down and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8482,8574,8978,8474],"class_list":["post-26889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-atlanta","tag-georgia-general-assembly","tag-legislature","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}