The three Democrats running to be the next sheriff of Bibb County agree on many of the issues.

They say crime in the county needs to be addressed and that children must be reached earlier to help save them from a life behind bars. All three say the sheriff should be accessible to residents.

But David Davis, Albert Hall and Bill Lucas have different visions of how the job should be done.

The man elected in this month’s primary will go on to face Republican Shawn Joseph Fritz in November.

Here’s a look at each candidate.

David Davis

Since his hiring at the sheriff’s office in 1979, Davis has risen through the ranks, working in capacities ranging from a jailer and patrol deputy to supervising the criminal investigations division and performing administrative duties. He was promoted to chief deputy in 2007.

He said he’s knowledgeable about the challenges facing Bibb County through his work supervising law enforcement operations and his involvement with civic and community groups.

If elected, Davis said he will create a citizens advisory board of five to seven people. Part of the board’s job would be to help identify problems that aren’t reported to deputies -- but that neighbors know about.

“If a house is broken into and the people don’t call us, we don’t know about it,” he said.

Davis wants to create a victims assistance unit at the sheriff’s office to help guide residents through the criminal justice system.

“If you have a theft or you have a crime that happens on your property and you want to know what’s happening with your case, you will have a number and a person to call,” he said. The unit wouldn’t replace similar services provided by the district attorney’s office and State Court, but it would help people before a case moves to the courthouse.

Davis said another of his goals is for the sheriff’s office to obtain state certification, which would provide a stamp of approval for the department’s policies and procedures.

Davis said he will continue to use the office’s resources as prudently as possible to meet crime challenges, much in the same “directed approach” used now. Deputies watch for crime trends and direct their efforts accordingly.

Statistics show that violent crime in the county has been on the decline in the past three years. Under his supervision, deputies busted a large burglary ring in the Lake Wildwood neighborhood in 2010 and a burglary ring off Wesleyan Woods Drive in early 2012, he said.

“If it’s working now, we’re going to let it continue to work,” Davis said of deputies’ crime-fighting methods. “You have to be adaptive and open to change your course or to change some of your approaches, depending on the crime challenges you might have and what’s happening in the community.”

Albert Hall

Hall retired from the sheriff’s office as a captain in the corrections division in 2008 after 27 years of working in multiple capacities, including work as a patrol deputy, a court security supervisor and a communications supervisor.

After retiring, Hall started teaching a course at Southwest High School that instructs students on public safety and law.

If elected, Hall said the sheriff’s office will become more aggressive toward criminals, use more roadblocks and set up task forces to specialize crime-fighting efforts in specific geographic areas in a proactive approach.

Different areas of the county have their own specific types of crime, he said, and deputies should know their streets -- and the residents on those streets.

In turn, residents need to know their officers and know they can call them if they need help, Hall said.

He said students have stopped viewing campus police officers as officers with “full power and authority,” and he wants to place a deputy in each of the county’s high schools.

Under his leadership, he said, the sheriff’s office would use resources, including social media sites such as YouTube, to help get videos of crimes and suspects in the public’s eye to help solve crimes.

“It’s time for Bibb County to come out of the box.”

He said he’d also foster more cooperation among local law enforcement agencies.

After 60 years of living in different parts of the county, he said, he’s familiar with its problems.

“I don’t have to go to the community and ask them what’s going on. I know what’s going on,” Hall said.

Hall said he retired from the sheriff’s office due to “stress” on the job. At the time, he was in charge of moving inmates from county custody into the state prison system while also addressing inmate complaints and complaints from their families.

His personnel file includes negative evaluations in the two years leading up to his retirement that note he needed “considerable supervision” and occasionally made “errors in judgment.”

Hall’s evaluator, Chief Deputy Russell Nelson, wrote that in two years supervising the detention center, Hall had not presented an “approved” policies and procedure manual for the center. In two 2007 evaluations, Nelson wrote that Hall was “not taking the overcrowding problems of the jail serious.”

In a Sept. 23, 2007, letter included in his file, Hall wrote that he didn’t agree with Nelson’s opinion of his work, and that his evaluations should have been written by a supervising major, not a chief deputy.

In a recent interview, Hall said he didn’t get negative evaluations until he came under Nelson’s supervision.

Bill Lucas

Lucas retired in 2006 from his job as director of inspections, compliance and policies for the Georgia Department of Corrections. He’d previously worked as an investigator for the department, partnering with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to solve crimes such as murders and arsons.

“I’ve worked the streets,” he said.

Earlier in his career, Lucas worked as a military police officer and a campus police officer.

In retirement, Lucas has worked as a consultant and private investigator, working cases for the state Attorney General’s Office.

If elected, Lucas said he wants the sheriff’s office to help change the cultural attitude of Bibb County as one way to help reduce crime. Inmates can be used to pick up trash along highways, for example, and help clean up vacant, blighted sites owned by the government.

A cleaner environment changes inmates’ expectations and helps reduce their aggression, he said. In the prison system, instilling that kind of attitude helped decrease the number of murders from 20 a year to zero, Lucas said.

“It changes the mind about what I’m going to do and how wild I become,” he said.

He also wants to use new ways to target and reduce gang activity and other crime.

“We can’t continue to do what we’ve done over the years in Macon and Bibb County and feel that we’re going to be safe,” Lucas said.

Under his leadership, the sheriff’s office would implement a program to train inmates how to weld and use donated steel to build cages for churches and nonprofit agencies plagued by thefts of their air conditioners for the metal.

Drawing from his experience helping manage more than 50,000 inmates and a $900 million budget, Lucas said he can reduce the cost of operating the jail.

He said he also wants to form task forces to be more aggressive with truancy programs and visit abandoned homes at night and remove the youths hanging out there.

“We’ve got to make the kids pull their pants up. It’s got to stop. They’ve got to stop disrespecting themselves, and they’ve got to stop disrespecting others.”

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.