Alabama prosecutors want certainty that people who are barred from having guns because of their criminal record will spend time in prison if they are caught with a firearm.

A proposal to strengthen Alabama’s gun prohibition for people who have committed violent felonies is one of several bills the Alabama District Attorneys Association will urge lawmakers to pass during the legislative session that starts next week. Prosecutors also want mandatory prison time for those who have guns while committing violent felonies. And they want to put more teeth in the law against low-level felonies, which they say was weakened by criminal justice reforms passed in 2015, a change they said is hurting efforts to fight thefts and crimes related to drug addiction.

Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey, president of the ADAA, said the gun bill is the top priority in the association’s legislative package.

“Currently, it is against the law for a person in Alabama who’s been convicted of a violent felony to possess a firearm,” Bailey said. “But there’s really no teeth to it. So someone who has committed a murder and gets out and is subsequently caught with a gun, they can be charged with this. But most of the time it’s been our experience they’re getting probation.”

The federal law barring felons from carrying firearms carries mandatory prison time. Bailey said federal authorities pursue only a limited number of cases. So the ADAA wants to make the state law more like the federal law.

“Most of these are prosecuted under state law and it’s been our experience that nothing’s really happening to these individuals,” Bailey said. “As a part of this legislation, what we’re wanting to do, if you are a violent felon that’s been convicted, and you are caught with a firearm, then we’re creating mandatory time for you to have to spend in the Department of Corrections.”

Bailey said the goal is to target people who have already shown they will use guns to break the law and hurt people.

“We’re trying to tackle those individuals before they have a chance to commit another violent crime,” Bailey said.

The ADAA will also support changing the law to require that a person convicted of a felony that involved using a gun would receive extra time on their sentence. That would be mandatory prison time.

ADAA Executive Director Barry Matson said the mandatory time would be five years for possessing a weapon during commission of a violent felony and 10 years if the offender brandishes, or shows the gun in a threatening way, during the crime. Matson said there’s nothing in the law now that guarantees prison time for a person who commits, for example, an armed robbery or rape, although those crimes, Class A felonies, carry potential sentences of 10 years to 99 years.

“We’re asking for at least a minimum of five years to serve in addition to whatever they got in the sentence,” Matson said. “So their minimum would be five years in any event because they used the firearm during the course of committing that violent offense.

“Using a firearm to commit a robbery, if they pull the trigger and kill somebody, then that robbery becomes a capital murder,” Matson said. “So a firearm is inherently dangerous in the course of committing one of these class A or violent class B felonies. Addressing the spike in violent crime we’re having across the state, particularly violent crime with a firearm, this is one of the better ways to address that.”

To add the sentence enhancement, Matson said a jury would have to make a separate determination on gun usage during the crime.

Bailey said the ADAA came up with the legislative package during meetings last fall. Lawmakers begin their annual session next Tuesday.

Matson said the bills the ADAA is supporting have not been finalized but expects lawmakers to introduce them next week.

In addition to the gun bills, the ADAA will ask lawmakers to pass legislation in response to what Bailey said is a surge in organized shoplifting, which involves two or more people working together to steal from retailers. Bailey said much of the stolen merchandise is sold on social media and platforms like Facebook Marketplace or eBay. Following up on a tip, Bailey said he went to a yard sale where he saw racks and racks of merchandise that still carried tags from retail stores.

“If you read the news or look at the TV news, there’s a story every day about retail theft usually revolving around some big box store or a company that is talking about how much money they’re losing because of the retail theft,” Bailey said. “It’s billions and billions of dollars which are being stolen every year which is then passed on to the consumer. And eventually they reach a breaking point where they can’t pass it on to the consumer anymore and they just have to close.”

Bailey said the organized thefts happen in a couple of different ways.

“The popular way right now is what is called skip scanning, which is people who go to the self-scanners and will scan a fairly inexpensive item and then bypass the scanner on more expensive items and then walk out the door,” Bailey said. “Then we have groups that are going in and stealing particular items from stores.”

Bailey said a criminal justice reform bill passed in 2015 weakened the state’s law against theft and other property crimes. For example, it eliminated the chance for jail or prison sentences in many cases of thefts of property valued at $500 to $1,500.

“What’s happening is a lot of these individuals, honestly, even the ones that are multiple time offenders, we’re seeing that they’re not getting prison time,” Bailey said.

The criminal justice reform bill of 2015 was intended to address Alabama’s overcrowded prison system, a problem that persists. One of the goals of the legislation was to preserve prison space for the most serious and violent offenders. The bill reclassified some nonviolent felonies as Class D, the lowest level of felony, with the idea that those offenders would receive probation or another alternative to prison. Prosecutors say it went too far and is making it harder to effectively control theft and other property crimes that are often committed by people supporting a drug habit.

“We either cannot or we’re severely limited in holding anybody accountable for committing a Class D,” Matson said. “I know it sounds crazy. People hear that and say it can’t be true. But it is. And we want to correct that. We feel like since 2015 we have enough examples and data to show that this is something that needs to be corrected from the 2015 legislation.”

Bailey and Matson said people charged with Class D felonies are less likely to participate in pretrial diversion programs or drug courts, which require them to agree to terms like drug testing, staying employed, taking GED courses, or similar activities in pursuit of having their cases dismissed. The prosecutors said without the threat of jail, many consider a guilty plea and probation easier than the demands that come with drug court or pretrial diversion programs.

“So why would they do those things like getting a job, staying clean, going to drug rehab?” Matson said. “Why do that when you can’t send me to jail. So I’m not going to do that stuff.”

Drug courts and pretrial diversion are important programs because they can change the offenders’ behavior and steer them away from more crime, prosecutors say.

Frederick Spight, policy director for the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, was asked about the ADAA’s position that the lack of risk of jail time for Class D felonies is hurting enforcement efforts. The Alabama Appleseed Center conducts research and advocates for criminal justice reforms.

“Sending people who are addicted to drugs to prison or jail in Alabama is one of the worst things we can do,” Spight said in an email responding to questions about the ADAA proposals. “Primarily because the prisons are so full of drugs. There are plenty of individuals who have gone in clean and come out testing positive for some sort of illegal substance including Fentanyl.”

Spight said people are dying in Alabama prisons because of drugs inside the facilities and the violence related to drugs and other contraband.

“Prison is not the answer,” Spight said. “Additionally, our research shows that people have a hard time completing diversion programs because these programs are expensive, costing thousands of dollars.”

“It’s hard to fight addiction because its a medical problem and criminalizing a medical problem is unlikely to be effective,” Spight said.

Matson said the purpose of the ADAA wanting to put more teeth in the law on Class D offenses is not to send more people to jail.

“We’re not saying that we want all these people to go to jail,” Matson said. “That’s not what we’re saying. And I know that folks will twist it to be that way. We just want the ability to hold somebody accountable that needs to be held accountable. And in doing so then we might could get back to effective drug court and diversion programs that we have seen transform lives.”

As for the mandatory prison time for gun violations, Spight said he could not comment specifically on those ideas but said lawmakers should consider the consequences of increasing the state’s prison population,

Montgomery County DA Bailey was asked about whether new mandatory prison laws are a good idea considering the circumstances in Alabama’s prisons, which are overcrowded, understaffed, and face a lawsuit alleging unconstitutional conditions by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Ultimately, and I’m not trying to have a scapegoat, but that is not my problem,” Bailey said. “That is obviously the Legislature and our state leaders’ issue. But my statement to them would be this: That if they don’t have room to protect Alabamians from violent offenders, they need to make room.”

“Pending in my office right now I have almost 300 murder cases,” Bailey said. “That’s 300 families that have lost loved ones that I believe we could have been prevented with some of these proactive measures that we’re trying to enact.”

“And if you go to the retail theft part of it, people are losing their jobs and losing their businesses because of the lack of action,” Bailey said.