FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
State Representative Shane Stringer - Jeff Poor Show - Tuesday 7-02-24
(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the Jeff Four Showed at the talk, 106.5. They just stay with us. On this Tuesday morning, 2513430106. Hit us up on that text line. I'll get to your text. Like I said, we're wide open at 10 o'clock hour, so we will further our discussion. And then, still to come on the program, by the way, Al Ben, Republican Party, Chairman John Wall, our Tuesday regular, so stay tuned for that. Joining us now on the line is usually on every other Monday, but we had to move things around and we're always, always grateful you can make time for us, but a state representative Shane Stringer is on the line. Representative, good morning, aren't you? - Hey, doing great, Jeff. Thanks for having me. - Hey, thanks for making time. Well, back to the state of Alabama here, I guess for a few moments, but let's talk about this. And you and I talked kind of offline about this last week, a little bit of what's going on, the criminal behavior, criminal activity, and some of Alabama's big cities, primarily Montgomery, is what we're looking at. Reed Ingram, Will Barfoot, are looking at some kind of mechanism that would create a situation like an accountability act we have from the public schools, that if you are at a certain point, when you're policing in your municipality, then the state will kind of come in, put it in like a receivership or something, and run your department until it gets put on the right foot. And I don't have any chance to look at some of the bill or the legislation that's been filed. We've had Barfoot on, we've had Reed Ingram on. And you and I talked a little bit about this concept, but now that it's sort of evolving, I mean, what do you think? Is there a better solution to Montgomery than what they have? - I've not had a chance to look at the bill, but I have spoken with Senator Barfoot about it, and had a pretty lengthy conversation with him and some of the others up there, you know, they've got some good intentions, and they are absolutely working hard trying to find some solutions to what's going on in Montgomery, and, you know, they, of course, do not fall for the concept that Constitution, Kerry, had anything or has anything to do with Montgomery's problems, you know, that they've just got some internal issues within the city that needs to be addressed, and they're trying to come up with ways, and, you know, in talking with them, I think there might be a path for what they're wanting to do, you know, which is basically when you got a city where the crime seems to be completely out of control or running rampant that you go in, and, you know, they're looking at sending in, you know, trying to find leadership for the police department, not just a, you know, temporary chief, but maybe temporary chief and staff that would be able to go in there and kind of restructure the department and turn things around and get it going in the right direction, and, you know, I think their concept would work, you know, 'cause just replacing the chief or putting, somebody like that in place is not gonna be the solution, you know, sometimes the problems is deeper than just the chief, and sometimes the issues you have, you know, you've got loyalty that lies there with the chief and his staff and the ones under him, so sometimes it takes more than just that change, and that's what they're looking at and considering, and, you know, this would be like a temporary measure or whatever and, and truthfully, kind of like a worst-case scenario measure to go in and address these concerns and issues, and, you know, and they pretty much feel, you know, feel the same way as I do, which is, you know, quit trying to blame everything on the gun or on the Constitution carry bill. Let's go ahead and, you know, call it what it is, man, it's a criminal problem, and let's address that, and if the current police leadership can't handle it, then something else has got to be done, and we can't sit back and let the victims of the citizens continue to be victimized and not do nothing. - Darryl Bailey, who's the district attorney up at Montgomery, I mean, he blamed, I mean, culturally, he put that on, you know, parenting and how younger, much younger, some of these gun violence perpetrators are getting, but I don't think he said, he put it on the legislature, and he doesn't say constitutional care, it's kind of interesting that he wants to, like, raise the penalty for, if you commit crime and you're using a firearm, you're using a gun, then that would be an enhancement to the penalty, whatever that may be, for whatever crime you committed. - And he says he's offered this and the legislature's kind of shrugged it off, why do you make of that? - I totally agree with him, you know, I think that's the way you address it, you address the problematic people, you know, I've had to revamp people over and over the, the second amendment is not a group right, it is not where, you know, a handful of thug individuals go out and cause problems and rob and steal and kill people and so we take everybody's guns, the second amendment is the individual right, you take away when an individual does something that takes his rights away, his or her rights away. I've said all alone and pretty much all of the Republican legislature will say this, you know, less enhanced penalties and not only handsome, let's enforce these penalties and let's take these people that are using firearms and crimes and let's make mandatory sentences or let's do some true sentencing instead of sentencing them and then to 10 years and then six months later they're out of jail, you know, because in the name of jail overcrowding, you know, it's, that has got to be addressed and dealt with. I agree with what he's saying and, you know, I wouldn't say it's the legislature's problem or, you know, followed all in one because that's not true 'cause I know, like I said, most of the Republican legislature will tell you that, you know, instead of addressing everybody, let's just put more harsher penalties on the ones that are doing it, let's not only do that, let's force them to stay in jail in prison until their sentences and when there is actually consequences to their actions, then you will start to see things change and get better. Of course, until then it's, you know, the old saying it's gonna be harder for a little while, we're gonna have to address even more people in the prisons and, you know, more correction officers and that kind of stuff, but the fact is we cannot continue to let these inmates out early, regardless of the overcrowding in the prisons, we have got to find a way to address the problems within the prison system to address, you know, all of this, every bit of this is multiple facets to this problem. There's not just one issue to the Montgomery violence crime or mobile violence crime or anywhere else. It's lots of where you've got social issues, you've got community issues, you've got policing community, you know, where we're lacking police officers and down on that and morale of the police department and officers are day on at times, so lots of problems and ideas, but we've got to find something to address it. - Well, where do we put, I mean, prison jail overcrowding, prison overcrowding, a lot of this is, it feels like it's forcing a lot of judges hand here to look for ways to reduce these sentences and it's not necessarily that the judges have like found some kind of religion in being like Alabama, Apple seeds version of incarceration or whatever, but it's just, you don't really have a place to put them if you stiffen the penalties, which you're probably right. I mean, it needs to happen, but then like, what do you do with that person once they're convicted? - Well, you know, you're exactly right, but I'll tell you this at the end of the day, like being in law enforcement, I am constantly reminding my officers that have worked for me over the years. When we make a case on somebody, we finally catch somebody that's been doing burglaries for six months and you finally get enough evidence to charge them with one or two and they go to court and they get down there and the court system's overcrowded and you know, the DA that's handling the case or the judge decides to minimize it or offer some kind of plea deal to nothing pretty much and it's discouraging for the law enforcement officers. And, you know, from time to time, I'll hear a detective or an officer say, well, I'm tired of it. You know, I do my job, I do what I'm supposed to and then they just let them out. Well, I remind them, I'm like, you continue to do your job. It is not your responsibility with the prosecutor or the judge does. Your job or the corrections for as that goes, your job is to solve crimes and to take the cases before the courts. And that's what they do. And if we continue to do that, we're fine. It is up to, it's not the judge's problem to worry about the overcrowding in the jails. That is absolutely not in their purview. They need to stick to, you know, enforcing and judging these cases based on the evidence that's presented to them and then take the appropriate steps based on what the law says they can. And then it's up to DOJ to handle it from, I'm sorry, DOC to handle it from there. - Well, I've listened to prosecutors talk about this and even some judges say, look, we gave them the status but corrections and the bureaucracy that deals with, and I know Chris England and those guys are upset with the partisan parole's board or whatever. But a lot of times these guys are getting out, you know, they're finding ways to kind of navigate the system and get out early. And a lot of that's just, it's in the name of either overcrowding or just a, perhaps a bureaucracy that lends itself to these early release. Like how do you, what do you do there? - You've got to have some checks and balances in place. I mean, there's got to be, when you get somebody that gets out of prison or jail before it's their time. And somebody, whether it be a pardon parole's, whether it be corrections, you know, we dealt with that a couple of years ago where the officer was killed in North Alabama, April Weaver, Senator Weaver, brought a bill to address that where they were giving the corrections, were given these inmates, ungodly amounts of good time to get them out of their jails or their prisons to take the stress and pressure off of them. There has to be checks and balances in place that holds somebody accountable when they do that. Whenever there's something that's not done proper or legal, we need to hold the right people in charge of those divisions, whether it be pardon and parole's, whether it be corrections, whatever the case is, we should be holding people accountable that's working this system to let these people out before their sentences are up. And until there's checks and balances to hold people accountable for their actions, I mean, and that goes for the people's running the prisons or running the corrections or, you know, running law enforcement or the courts. Until there's checks and balances in place, you know, people are gonna do what they can do to lighten the load on them or lighten the stress on them. And at the end of the day, you know, all of these jobs and positions are high stress and typically they're pretty high paying. So, I mean, you have to take the good with the bad. And if you're willing to take this leadership role over corrections or over pardon and parole's or over a police department or the courts, you've gotta be willing to take the responsibility that comes with that and that's making sure that things are being done properly. - The other thing that Darryl Bailey talked about on Capitol Journal was this, that there's a backlog that these judges are not getting to these cases, you know, the backlog in the courts, the prosecutors are overwhelmed, the courts are overwhelmed, you're talking about having a jury trial and these are long sometimes, you know, that there's just a backlog here and that's a big part of this. Like, what do you do there, you think? - And I've heard that. I've heard it over the years and I've seen it. I mean, that's when AOC and some of the different sources for revenue are gonna have to step up and address the concerns and are the issues in some of these problematic areas like Montgomery, they're gonna have to find ways, if they have to hire a part-time, you know, judges and prosecutors to get this caseload called up for the time being, we, you know, we adapt and overcome. We have to do what it takes to keep our community safe and we find ways to do it. I mean, the primary goal and focus of government and whether it be on a local, state or federal level is to keep our community safe. Without safety and security, we have nothing. So we have got to find ways to do it. I mean, we can sit back and make excuses and sometimes it's not excuses, it's the truth. I mean, about why we can't do this or why we can't do that or we can find a way to make it happen and we can do things that, you know, we may have to think outside the box but we can find ways to address the problems and issues. - Well, last question that we'll get you out of here. Politically though, I mean, like how big of a deal is this? Do you think it doesn't show up in the, like, I don't know, the election in a few years? Like, this has got to be something, you look at Alabama right now and you look at, I mean, education's always there, infrastructure's really kind of made a push. But I think like people just get fed up with crime and I think this is going to be like a big, but potentially a big campaign issue but certainly it's got to, it's going to be like one of the motivations of getting people out to the polls and like what Republicans have done since they've been in charge since 2010. I mean, things don't seem to be improving. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the perception at least. - And that's true in some areas but I've also seen in some areas where they've actually absolutely made a difference. You know, and those say in presence and of law enforcement prevents crime and that's an absolute fact. And, you know, it's a matter of making sure that your community is safe and seeing your officers and, you know, if a bad guy's coming through your community and he's seeing your cops, seems like everywhere, then they're least likely to try to do a crime of robbery or something in your community. But yeah, I absolutely think that it could come back in the election cycle. You know, we've seen it over, I've seen it over my lifetime where, you know, the issues of the community of the citizens always are brought forth in elections. And like you said, whether that's in the form of infrastructure, it's time we address some of our depleted roads or whether it's crime, you know, whatever the concerns of the citizens, they will let you know. And, you know, the government, we are supposed to meet the needs of our communities and our citizens and that changes from time to time. We've lived in a ever-changing world and everything that we're doing, you know, so it is, you know, we've seen over the last, I guess, four, five, six, seven years where, you know, there's been a decline in law enforcement and you're not seeing as many applicants come in and that's played a part and that's, you know, that's one of the many parts I'm telling you about that that come into these situations, but you've also seen where officers are prosecuted for everything, anything and everything, just to appease the community sometimes. That's detrimental because then the work product of the officers slow down because they're concerned or scared that they're gonna get in trouble. So there's a balance to be found in all of this, you know, all the DA in Montgomery County for what he's trying to do. I totally agree with that and think that if they could, you know, come up with some way to make it stiffer on the bad guy, the ones, the bad actors. Let's address them and, you know, not just addressing, let's address them soon, man. Some of these younger ones that are getting caught with guns and stuff, there's gotta be a way to, that's out doing crimes with those guns. We've gotta find a way to address them and deal with them sooner than later. - Representative, we always appreciate your time. We gotta get out of here, but thanks for coming on again. - Yes, sir, thanks for having me. Y'all have a blessed day. - All right, stay representative Shane Stringer there. We are back. This is F.I.P. Talk, 106.5. Bye!