Candidates running for Hall County sheriff have differing views on the effects of Georgia’s criminal justice reform act and accreditation for the agency they seek to lead.The five candidates for sheriff, all Republicans, made their stances on the issues known at a forum sponsored by the Hall County Republican Party, taking questions for more than an hour Saturday morning.The primary election is July 31. Early voting begins July 9.The forum at the Georgia Mountains Center theater drew an audience so large that some were forced to sit in aisles and stand in the hallways.And several times during the 90-minute forum, audience members would shout out at the candidates.At one point in the forum, as Gerald Couch made his final address to the crowd and mentioned a desire to address physical fitness in the department, a man near the front of the crowd yelled, “In other words, you don’t like fat people.”One of the lengthiest discussions of the forum focused on the state’s new criminal justice reform law.The sweeping law, which takes effect today, aims to keep nonviolent offenders out of the state’s prison beds by changing sentencing requirements for theft and burglaries and pushing rehabilitation for repeat drug offenders.But John Sisk, who like Couch served in both the sheriff’s office and Gainesville Police Department, said he believed the law would result in more criminals in Hall County and place more of a burden on deputies.“I know it’s a burden on the state to keep people in prison, but what that does, it dumps them back into Hall County,” Sisk said. “That means we’re going to have more criminals on the streets, we’re going to have a harder time enforcing the laws; we’re going to have a harder time protecting the citizens of Hall County because there is going to be more people out there because they’re not in prison.”Chuck Hewett, the former chief of security at the jail, also sounded skeptical.“As far as the prisons (are) concerned, I’m a very cut and dried person on this: If you break the law you need to go to jail,” he said.Hewett said while he understood the cost-saving efforts of the reforms, he worried that changes in the law for burglary sentences, dividing the charge into two degrees, would water down punishments for what he said was an offense that may not be considered “violent” but still made victims feel “violated.”“It becomes a society that gets lackluster in its prosecution of crimes, and that bothers me,” Hewett said.Former chief deputy Jeff Strickland, too, said the concern should be on whether the lowered punishment for nonviolent crimes would have an impact on the Hall County Jail’s population and costs for county taxpayers.But Sisk, Strickland and Couch all believe accountability courts for drug offenders and criminals with mental health issues are a positive step.“Instead of being a tax burden, they’re back to being at the taxpayer status,” Couch said.The changes to degrees of burglaries, Couch said, doesn’t weaken punishments.Likewise, Jon P. Strickland, a former Gainesville police officer and Georgia State patrolman, said the law seeks to deal with the source of problems, like drug addiction.“I think the main thing to keep in mind with this new law is does punishment fit the crime?