A bill backed by Attorney General Steve Marshall and others in law enforcement to increase penalties for crimes committed by gang members won approval today in an Alabama House committee.

Legislators received a letter signed by 162 police chiefs and sheriffs urging them to pass the bill. “We call upon the Legislature to expeditiously consider and pass this important tool in combating the rise of gang activity in our communities,” the letter says. “Gang violence is a cancer and tough sentences are the antidote.”

The bill, HB191 by Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, who is the former assistant police chief in Birmingham, would put a definition of gang member in state law. Crimes that those identified as gang members committed to benefit or promote a gang would automatically be bumped up to the next level of felony offense. For example, a Class C felony, which carries a penalty of 1 to 10 years, would be bumped up to a Class B, which carries a sentence of 2 to 20 years. Class B would be prosecuted as a Class A, which carries a sentence of 10 to 99 years. The bill would also set mandatory prison time for gang-related crimes when the offender carried or used a gun. And it would require 16-year-olds who commit a crime on behalf of a gang to automatically be tried as an adult.

“We applaud legislation that finally recognizes, and duly punishes, senseless gun crime that is so often tied to gang-related conflict,” the letter from the police chiefs and sheriffs said.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin publicly called for a truce in gang activity after five people were shot to death on a Friday and Saturday in September.

Attorney General Marshall worked with Ledbetter and Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Montgomery, to develop the bill. “Gang violence has steadily increased over the last decade, but we must refuse to accept it in Alabama,” Marshall said in a news release today. “The legislature can help to curb this trend by enacting the Alabama Gang Prevention Act. Together, we are urging the swift passage of this legislation that will give state and local law enforcement the tools they need to take back our streets.”

The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill on a voice vote. Several Democratic members of the committee said they understood concerns about gang-related crimes but questioned whether the bill to enhance prison sentences and prosecute 16-year-olds as adults was the correct response.

Rep. Patrice McClammy, D-Montgomery, an attorney who represents juvenile defendants in the legal system, voted against the bill. McClammy said the state needs to provide more mental health counseling and other programs to help steer young people away from crime, including those who now move through what she called a revolving door in and out of the system.

“First of all, we can find money all over the place to fund prisons,” McClammy said. “We never talk about funding when it’s time to talk about funding some type of mental health, funding therapy, trying to fund programs, it seems like we never know where the money can come from.”

McClammy and several others said they were concerned that people would be unfairly labeled as gang members.

“We all know when you’re talking about quote, unquote, gangs, you’re profiling,” McClammy said. “We’re targeting people. And we see the same kids, just put them in jail, let them stay there for a certain amount of time, put them right back in the same environment with no type of structure. No type of therapy. No anything.”

Treadaway said he was familiar with offenders who move in and out of a revolving door after a 31-year law enforcement career. He said he has encountered many who return to violent crime repeatedly despite intervention efforts.

“I’ve seen it first-hand,” Treadaway said. “I can’t tell you how many homicides I’ve been on. Hundreds. And you know what? I care more about those victims and the families left behind than we care about these folks in prisons that have the revolving door in and out. I don’t know the answer. But I can tell you this. Until we find it out, we better have a place to put them. Or there’s going to be another victim, and another victim, and another family suffering.”

Today’s approval by the committee puts the bill in position for a vote by the full House of Representatives.