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Paul DeMarco | Guest Columnist

Violent crime in our state continues to get worse. In Birmingham, alone homicides are up by 15 percent after the first six months of the year. And look at Montgomery, where homicides have increased by 93 percent over the past five years.

There is no question public safety has become the number one problem in this state and it is not being addressed at the local level. Thus, it will be up to state leaders to strengthen the Alabama’s criminal justice system.

This past spring Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called a special session to address the horrific crime rates that has made some of the cities in his state some of the most dangerous places to live in the country. State leaders understood that they could not wait any longer to address the problem, as it was just creating more crime victims. Louisiana lawmakers successfully passed legislation that gave more tools to law enforcement and prosecutors to go after the bad guys.

Alabama should follow suit. Gov. Kay Ivey should work with Attorney General Steve Marshal and Alabama legislators to approve new laws to deter crime and punish those that wound endanger the public. Now is the time to bring the stakeholders in the criminal justice system together to study entire system from crime, to arrest, to sentencing and incarceration. Then those recommendations should be the basis of bills to propose to take on the violent crime in the state. Most importantly, there should be truth in sentencing implemented in this state.

Just as in Louisiana, Alabama leadership should address crime and public safety sooner rather than later.

Paul DeMarco is a former member of the Alabama House of Representatives and served as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. He can be found on X, formerly Twitter, at @Paul_DeMarco.