The announcement comes as some Senate Republicans seek to punish Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis for initiating a wide-ranging election interference investigation that led to indictments against former President Donald Trump and 18 others.

Their colleague, state Sen. Shawn Still, a first-term Republican from Norcross, was charged with taking part in a pro-Trump slate of electors in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who was at the announcement, could also face criminal charges involving his role as a Republican elector.

But Albers pushed back on the idea that the investigation was targeting Willis.

“We’re looking at the Fulton County Jail and all the things that surround that,” he said. “So it would be very presumptive and getting far out of bounds of where we are right now to be talking about an individual or any one group. We’re going to do the right thing, and that is a thorough investigation and (we’ll) go wherever the facts may lead us.”

Jones said the senators were taking a proactive step toward finding ways to keep the jail safe.

“We’re not coming to this from an adversarial standpoint, we’re coming in as a body that wants to help have solutions to this issue and this problem that is continuing to grow right now,” he said.

State prisons have also had major problems for years, but Republican leaders have not formed a panel to look at that. Instead, Albers’ panel will focus on Fulton County.

The formation of the Fulton County Jail panel comes less than a week after an inmate killed a corrections officer at Smith State Prison and two weeks after an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found that hundreds of prison employees have been arrested since 2018 on charges of smuggling in contraband, usually illicit drugs and cellphones. The AJC in recent years has repeatedly documented numerous, serious problems in the prison system.

In April, the AJC revealed that an inmate lay dead in his bunk for five days — his body stuffed inside a mattress and decomposing — before anyone on the prison staff responded.

Albers said his Public Safety Committee will get the results of an investigation being done by the Department of Corrections.

“As with anything that happens in any part of our government, we can continue to provide oversight and we can work together with them to make sure that we’re giving them the proper tools and funding and everything is done aboveboard,” he said.

Five Republicans and one Democrat will serve on the panel. Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, a Cataula Republican and former major with the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office, will be its chair.

State Sen. Sonya Halpern, the lone Democrat on the subcommittee, said her appointment to the panel was logical since she serves as the chair of Fulton County’s Senate delegation.

“Working to figure out solid solutions that can be applied here and statewide would be a priority of mine because we cannot continue to have people dying in our jail,” the Atlanta Democrat said.

The panel will hold its first meeting Nov. 2.

Members of the Senate Public Safety subcommittee:

Public Safety Chair John Albers, R-Roswell

Veterans, Military and Homeland Security Chair Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton

Fulton County Delegation Chair Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta

Science and Technology Chair Chuck Payne, R-Dalton

Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, R-Cataula

Judiciary Chair Brian Strickland, R-McDonough