Nearly $1M extra in Georgia budget will help bring state gang prosecutors to Macon

The Georgia Attorney General’s Office will be able to expand its Gang Prosecution Unit to Macon under the newly-passed state budget, a move Bibb County authorities welcome as they warn of rising gang issues.

The 2025 state budget, which was passed by the state General Assembly March 28, included $822,411 for the gang unit to hire more regional prosecutors and investigators in Macon, Columbus and Savannah, said Attorney General Chris Carr.

Carr said that while the unit is currently witnessing broad gang activity in Columbus, Macon and southeast Georgia, the main goal for the expansion is to ensure that all Georgia residents are protected. He said the extension’s decision did not stem from an increase of gang activity in the listed areas.

“It’s important to know that gang issues are not limited to these areas,” Carr said. “There are gangs all over the state … The issue here is to bring resources to the areas and to stop violent crimes.”

But gang activity has been a prevalent issue in Macon-Bibb County since the mid-late 1990s, said Sgt. Ron Byrd, gang unit investigator for the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.

“It seems like as of lately, we’ve had a huge uptick in juvenile crimes, which also includes juvenile gang members and things like that,” Byrd said. “Since my time being here at the sheriff’s office, I can’t think of another time when we had so many crimes involving juveniles.”

Byrd said hybrid street gangs in Macon are steadily growing everyday by youth, with most of them existing in Bibb County’s impoverished communities. Hybrid gangs are often smaller or “spin-offs” of traditional, major street gangs like the Crips or Bloods, but they do not have a code of conduct of formal rules like the traditional gangs, he added.

Because the hybrid gangs are constantly forming, “We like to say we have hundreds of street gangs and thousands of members (in Bibb County),” Byrd added.

The prosecution unit is currently composed of prosecutors and investigators based in Atlanta, Albany and Augusta. Carr said the expansion will give the gang task force the ability to truly become “a statewide unit with regional offices that will help us provide better coverage for the state.”

Byrd said the state unit’s expansion would benefit the five-man gang investigation unit the sheriff’s office currently has.

“I like to say you can never have too many sets of eyes, and you can never have too much help,” he said.

Although Gov. Brian Kemp has not signed the state budget yet, Carr believes “we don’t think we’d have any problems with the expansion because it’s a priority of (the governor) as well.”

Kemp included the funding for the expansion in the budget he proposed to the General Assembly, which the legislature kept intact when the final budget was passed in March, said Kara Richardson, communications director of the attorney general.

Kemp made a supportive post of the budget on social media in March, highlighting its intentions to expand Georgia’s Gang Prosecution Unit and Task Force.

“...I’m thankful to see the FY 2025 Budget receive final passage,” the Twitter post read. “The investments made in this budget will help us keep Georgia the best state to live, work and raise a family.”

The attorney general’s office will have six new positions for the areas filled by July 1, said Carr, who created Georgia’s first statewide prosecution unit in 2022.

Since then, the unit has secured 39 convictions and indicted 135 people across the state, Richardson said.