ATLANTA – Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor in Georgia, has revived his call to ramp up the state’s efforts to crack down on gangs.

A key part of his pitch during the Republican primary, Kemp’s “stop and dismantle” proposal would devote state funding to create a street gang database within the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that lawmakers first envisioned nearly a decade ago.

The plan would also fund a gang unit within the state Attorney General’s Office and form a state-level strike team to aid local agencies that cannot afford their own specialists.

“This is more than just a metro Atlanta issue,” Kemp told the media at his campaign’s Atlanta office in Buckhead. “This is 157 counties that have reported a rise in gang activity.”

Secretary of State Kemp and state Attorney General Chris Carr, who held a joint press conference, said there are 71,000 identifiable gang members in the state and 1,500 gang networks, citing a survey from the Georgia Gang Investigators Association. According to that survey, 155 school systems have reported an uptick in gang activity.

Kemp said he did not yet know how much the initiative would cost. He proposed funding it through existing state resources.

Kemp’s tough-on-crime platform has at times mirrored that of President Donald Trump, who tweeted his endorsement of Kemp during the primary. But he insisted Wednesday that his plan “has nothing to do with politics but everything to do with public safety.”

“These gangs are from different races and originate from different parts of our state, our country and our hemisphere, but they all share one thing in common: Desire to turn a profit at all costs, even if it means taking an innocent life.”

When asked if he was concerned his plan would disproportionately affect minority communities, Kemp had this to say:

“Look, if somebody’s a street gang member, we’re going to go after them. If somebody’s breaking the law, we’re going to go after them,” he said.

“If somebody’s a Mexican drug cartel, or any other kind of drug cartel that is poisoning our children, shooting up our neighborhoods or wrecking havoc on our families, we’re going to go after them,” he added.

Kemp faces Democrat Stacey Abrams in the Nov. 6 general election. The most recent polling, released last week by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution/Channel 2, showed them tied at 45 percent. Just 8 percent of respondents said they were undecided.