Are we on the right path as a city? What are your thoughts as the reader? Be sure to follow Muscogee Muckraker on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see our upcoming stories as they break throughout the coming week.

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Stacey Jackson is looking for a slight increase in his office’s budget to help make a serious impact in our city’s fight against gang-related crime. 

During the Columbus City Council’s Budget Committee Meeting held on May 9, Jackson asked for funds to hire additional personnel needed to investigate and prosecute the city’s growing number of gang-related offenders.

To help his office do that, Jackson says he needs to bring in two additional investigators and two additional administrators. The total cost in new salaries needed would only amount to about $155,000 per year for the city.

 Jackson held no punches and spoke frankly and honestly in his justification for his budget ask:

“The reason why I’m asking for these two personnel additions is because recently, in concert with the Attorney General, and by other investigative agencies, and by the Jensen Hughes study, we know: We’ve got a gang problem in Columbus. It’s here. And we have to deal with it,” Jackson said. 

Jackson specifically mentioned that many of our city’s gang-related cases now involve juvenile offenders, but they don’t have enough investigators on-staff to cover that recent uptick:

“We’re not only seeing the gangs come in through superior court — through the adults — but we’re also seeing a rise of these kinds of cases in the juvenile system as well very recently. And we have to investigate those cases … As of right now, I do not have an investigator in juvenile court. Period. And increasingly, we’re seeing more serious violent felonies come through juvenile court — and we have to address that.”

Jackson spoke passionately about the city’s current state of crime and violence. Jackson used the city’s own number of current felony cases to show how his office wants to prosecute our city’s criminals, but struggles to do so without the resources he’s requesting:

“The Muscogee County population is about 206,000. We have about 6,000 pending felony cases in Muscogee County as we speak,” Jackson said. 

When you break that down, that’s about one felony case for every 34 people in the county. That’s extremely high. 

Jackson continued by explaining how quickly those cases continue to pile up given how slowly the office’s resources are allowing them to be concluded:

“So far in 2023 in Muscogee County, we’ve closed 1,247 cases. We have 118 murder cases pending,” Jackson said. 

As crime continues at its current rate and our city’s law enforcement officers continue to make more and more arrests, that stack of open cases will continue to grow faster and faster.

When Jackson was sworn in last year, the District Attorney’s Office was severely short-staffed. With seven assistant district attorney positions vacant — including the Chief ADA — the DA’s office was at a critical disadvantage in our city’s ability to prosecute offenders and place the guilty behind bars. 

After just one year on the job, Jackson has already filled each and every one of those vacant positions. However, the increasing rate of cases means the office still can’t keep up to fight the city’s staggeringly-high number of gang-related offenses. 

That’s why Jackson says his office needs a small budget increase so they can hire two additional investigators and two additional administrators. 

“Municipal court and juvenile court do not have investigators,” Jackson said. “What I’ve asked for in the budget is two investigators, which according to the new salary pay scale will add to the budget about $85,000 — total, for the two. And the two admins that I’m asking for will add to the budget about $70,000.”

Jackson also stressed the importance of an extremely-large drug bust made by the Muscogee County Sheriff’s office just a few days ago, showing how serious and prevalent the city’s gang-related crime really is:

“Kudos to the police department and kudos to the sheriff’s department — but even in the last forty-eight hours, the sheriff’s department made a bust where they had (speaks slowly and with extreme emphasis) eleven kilos of methamphetamine. It’s here. In this city. Eleven kilos. Approximately a million dollars worth of meth found in our city, as recently as forty-eight hours ago,” Jackson emphasized. 

Having our city’s valiant law enforcement officers get these criminal scumbags off the street is the sharpest tip of the spear in our city’s fight against violent gang-related crime. Having our DA’s office successfully prosecute — to put the guilty behind bars and keep them there — is how our city sustains that fight.

Without the proper resources to do that at a rate faster than the cases pile up, our city won’t stand a chance.

The problem isn’t going to go away on its own.

Perhaps our city should go out of its way to get our DA what he reasonably needs. Now that would be amazing. 

Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur.

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

-30-

© 2023 Muscogee Muckraker. All rights reserved.

Be sure to follow Muscogee Muckraker on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see all the muck that’s fit to print as it breaks throughout the coming week.