Prison overcrowding that has Nebraska teetering on the edge of an emergency situation as defined by state law hasn't convinced many lawmakers that another prison is needed. A majority responding to an Associated Press survey don't think another state prison is needed.

Some believe alternatives to incarceration should be pursued. "I don't think we have to build a new prison and we couldn't afford it in any event," said Sen. Pete Pirsch of Omaha, chairman of a legislative task force addressing the issue. A new prison could cost hundreds of millions of dollars for construction and staffing, Pirsch said.

Instead, he said, the state needs to have adequate community-corrections programs for some nonviolent, low-risk offenders and ensure there is prison space for violent criminals.

Community-corrections programs that hinge on intensive, probationary supervision were put in place after Nebraska built a $73 million prison in Tecumseh in 2001 to relieve overcrowding at its other facilities. But after a big push to implement the programs, critics say, the state hasn't spent enough money to develop them or created sentencing guidelines so the programs can be used more.

Some experts say lawmakers may have guaranteed the prison population will continue to rise when earlier this year they increased penalties for more than a dozen crimes to help curb gun and gang violence, mainly in Omaha.

The prison population has been hovering near a threshold, 140 percent of prison capacity, that allows the governor to declare an emergency and release inmates to decrease overcrowding. Last week, it was at nearly 138 percent.

University of Nebraska at Omaha professor T. Hank Robinson has said the tough-on-crime bill passed by lawmakers could cost the state $7.5 million to $10 million by increasing the prison population and keeping inmates incarcerated for longer periods.

State Sen. Kent Rogert of Tekamah was one of the 22 lawmakers in The Associated Press survey who said the state should not begin preparing to build another prison, but said more must be done to boost community programs.

Thirty-four of the Legislature's 49 senators responded to the survey. Nine said they were unsure whether the state should prepare to build another prison, three said the state should start preparing.

"Nebraska has stiffened penalties on many crimes over the past decade in contrast to many other states," Rogert said. "I believe we need more ways to reduce our prison costs by recidivism programs and more community corrections. Juvenile-justice overhaul must happen and must happen soon. Our young people are left out in the cold too often."

Sen. Ken Schilz of Ogallala, one of the three senators who said the state should begin preparing to build another prison, suggested the state stop short of a full-blown prison and instead look to a facility that can hold nonviolent offenders, such as the Work Ethic Camp in McCook.

The camp should be "a model to start more facilities placed in rural Nebraska to alleviate overcrowding" in prisons, Schilz said.

The camp isn't a lockdown facility. About two-thirds of the offenders committed nonviolent felonies and were ordered to spend time at the camp as conditions of their probation. They attend classes that apply to their offenses and provide labor to government and nonprofit groups.