A part of the recent budget submission by Coweta County District Attorney Pete Skandalakis to the Coweta County Commission included the category and number of criminal cases opened by his office during 2008 and 2009 across the Coweta Judicial Circuit. Coweta and the circuit as a whole saw some increase in such cases, but Coweta ranked below Carroll and Troup counties in the total number of cases.
The Coweta Judicial Circuit includes Coweta, Carroll, Heard, Meriwether and Troup counties. Case categories listed by the district attorney included drugs, gangs, violence, firearms, domestic, alcohol, theft and sex. The number of cases in the circuit in all categories totaled 5,965 in 2008 and 6,174 in 2009.
Skandalakis in a letter to the commission noted the increase in crime that was due in part to the economic downturn facing the counties in the circuit.
Specific to Coweta, there were a total of 1,141 cases in 2008 and 1,232 in 2009. While home to the largest population of the five-county circuit, Coweta had fewer total cases in 2008 than either Carroll, at 1,835, or Troup, at 1,466. The same was true in 2009, with Carroll showing 2,028 cases and Troup with 1,616.
The estimated populations of the three counties in 2009 by the U.S. Census Bureau showed Coweta with 127,111, Carroll with 114,778 and Troup with 64,653.
A breakdown of the case categories in Coweta for both years showed:
2008 2009
Drugs – 278 356
Gangs- 3 4
Violence- 137 162
Firearms- 34 58
Domestic- 112 73
Alcohol- 9 19
Theft- 287 368
Sex- 49 40
