Decision 2024: Meet Matt Moulton, candidate for Houston County Sheriff
Early voting begins April 29 and ends on May 17. Election Day will be May 21.
HOUSTON COUNTY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Four Republican candidates are qualified for the upcoming Houston County Sheriff election. Arthur Harris is running unopposed as a Democrat.
Matt Moulton, Will Kendall, Jimmy Dunn, and Slate Simons are competing to win the Republican nomination in the upcoming primary election.
41NBC’s Monica Diaz-Meek spoke with each candidate ahead of the May 21 election.
Candidate name: Matt Moulton
Running for: Houston County Sheriff
Occupation: Criminal Investigations Division Lieutenant at Houston County Sheriff’s Office
Campaign Website: mattmoultonforsheriff.com
MONICA- Welcome back. It is almost election day, but we are first going to sit down with Matt Moulton. First off, thank you for being here.
MATT- Thank you for having me.
MONICA- We have the Houston County Sheriff’s race coming up in a few short weeks, so I have a few questions I’d like to talk about. First off, what do you think is the biggest issue or challenge facing the Sheriff’s Office and how do you plan on solving that?
MATT- For now, right now, our biggest issue is manpower. It’s going to be staffing. We operate a detention facility with the Sheriff’s Office, that is our local jail. We also have patrol, traffic, investigations and warrant and functions as well as juvenile and our 911 center. So our biggest issue is manpower. We’ve got about 40 positions vacant in our detention centers. It’s hard to hire people. You know, in the past, the Sheriff’s Office hasn’t really had to focus on recruiting, because we had people come in and apply for jobs. That trend has changed a lot. It’s a nationwide problem with manpower being down. So focusing on actively recruiting good people to come to the Sheriff’s Office to do a job that’s difficult and often thankless, but is important.
MONICA- What data are you going to consider most heavily that’s going to indicate that Houston County is moving towards a safer direction?
MATT- Yeah, you know we have a record management system that we do all our reporting in and part of the modules in that system we are able to do crime analysis and report analysis through that. You know, if we’re looking for at an issue such as entering autos, you know vehicle thefts things like that, I can go in and build queries in that system to pull the data out of the system for reports that have been written on it. So using that data you can tell if numbers have gone up or if numbers have come down. So using our records management system would probably be the most effective way for me to use data to make decisions on policing.
MONICA- Alright. Now how do you plan on making Houston County safer? Is it using the data we just talked about or what is your plan if elected?
MATT- It is. Using the data like that we can direct patrols in neighborhoods . If we have one neighborhood specifically targeted by entering autos, we can see that data and direct our patrols to go into those neighborhoods and proactively police those neighborhoods. Another method is, you know with manpower being short , we tend to become more reactive . With calls for service coming out, we have deputies responding to call after call after call and then having downtime trying to get reports written , they have less time to do proactive policing. When you’re not proactive policing then the criminals don’t see law enforcement being active and they believe that’s a foothold to come in and start committing crime. So getting our manpower up is going to help tremendously and then going back to a proactive law enforcement style where we’re out actively targeting criminals and taking criminals off the street.
MONICA- Alright. Now, why do you think that you are the best candidate for Houston County Sheriff? What makes you different than the rest?
MATT- Well that’s a great question, For me, I’m the only active law enforcement officer in this race right now. I’ve been a law enforcement officer now for over 28 years with 24 of those years being right here in Houston County or down in Houston County. You know I believe I entered into law enforcement because it was a calling and is a job that I’ve loved for the last 28 years. I don’t know what God is doing or what he has planned for my life, but I know what he has done for my life and that gives me comfort to know that he wants to use extraordinary people to do extraordinary things. So part of what my focus is going to be is to bring up our manpower and get the crime numbers under control. We’re having a huge problem with juvenile crime. Most of our violent crime is being committed between the ages of 13 to 18 to 21-years-old in Houston County, so understanding what we deal with daily and being an active member of the Sheriff’s Office now for the past 10 years. I know what issues that we’re facing. I’ve been out there. I’ve worked patrol. I’ve worked traffic. I’ve worked narcotics, investigations. I’m currently a lieutenant in the criminal investigations division. I know the job. I know what issues we have. I know what issues we have and how to address those issues. And I think, that’s what makes me the best candidate.
MONICA- Thank you, Mr Moulton.
MATT- Thank you, I appreciate it.
Snippets from all candidates’ interviews will air on 41NBC News at 6 p.m., 11 p.m., DayBreak and 41Today. All interviews will also be posted in full on 41NBC.com on the following days:
Monday, April 22 – Matt Moulton
Tuesday, April 23– Will Kendall
Wednesday, April 24 – Jimmy Dunn
Thursday, April 25 – Slate Simons
