HB 197 requires any hospital or other licensed health care facility which is not party to an emergency health care services contract with a sheriff or governing authority or its agent on July 1, 2011, shall be reimbursed no more than the applicable Georgia Medicaid rate for emergency health care and follow-up health care services provided to a detainee.

In addition to other issues, HB 200 requires that law enforcement training centers monitored by the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council and funded by the Georgia Public Safety Training Center are required to include training on methods of identifying, combating and reporting incidents where a person has been trafficked for labor or sexual servitude. Training and materials will also be required to provide proper detention facilities or alternatives to detention facilities for those who have been trafficked for labor or sexual servitude.

This bill creates the 2011 Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians to study Georgia's criminal justice and correction system to enhance public safety, reduce victimization, hold offenders more accountable, enhance probation and parole supervision and better manage a growing prison population. The Council would create a report of its findings and recommend legislation no later than January 9, 2012. The Council's recommendations would then be considered by a Special Joint Committee on Georgia Criminal Justice Reform. The joint committee would cause legislation to be introduced incorporating the recommendations without significant changes.

Requires testing of all convicted felons in the custody of the Department of Corrections and the county jails.

This bill requires the Department of Corrections to accept electronically submitted sentencing packages on criminal defendants who have been sentenced to serve time in the state prison system. If the inmate is not picked up within 15 days of the Department receiving the sentencing package, then it would be responsible for paying a per diem to the county to help cover some of the costs to the property taxpayers of housing the state inmate in the county jail. This bill would reflect the current the per diem of $22.00 per day in the statute.

HR 251 urges district attorneys to stop prosecuting cases seeking the death penalty.  The resolution asks them to invest their time and resources in solving homicides, providing effective public safety programs and focusing on violence prevention.

For purposes of determining population and any other purpose under law, SB 48 would create the presumption that an incarcerated person's residence is his or her last residence prior to arrest.  If the person did not have a residence prior to arrest, then their residence would be the county in which he or she was indicted.

This bill requires counties with population of 100,000 or more have their jails participate in the Federal Secure Communities Initiative by July 1, 2012. There is a federal requirement that all of those communities be on line by July 1, 2013.

HR 251 urges district attorneys to stop prosecuting cases seeking the death penalty.  The resolution asks them to invest their time and resources in solving homicides, providing effective public safety programs and focusing on violence prevention.