MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama would build new prisons in an effort to relieve crowding and violence in the state’s correctional facilities, under a plan approved Thursday by the state Senate.

Senators voted 23-11 for the bill after nearly three hours of debate. It now heads to the House of Representatives.

The plan seeks to add about 2,000 beds to the state prison system. Sen. Cam Ward, the bill’s sponsor, said the new prisons would be better designed than the state’s current prisons which feature large dormitories.

“You have facilities now that are not going to meet constitutional muster. …. You can’t have several hundred dangerous inmates in one place because the officers are just unable to monitor. That’s one reason you have the stabbings and the violence,” Ward said.

The plan hinges on interest from local communities in having the prisons and the jobs that will come with them. The bill authorizes the state to lease up to three prisons built by local communities. The bill would also authorize a $350 million state bond issue to build one new prison and renovate others, but the state must have two lease agreements in place before borrowing money. Most existing prisons would close, under the proposal.

Alabama prisons house 23,074 inmates in facilities built for 13,318, which puts the department at 173 percent capacity. Overcrowding and staffing shortages have contributed to outbreaks of violence. A corrections officer was fatally stabbed by an inmate last year, and three inmates have been killed this year in violence between prisoners.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing inmates in a class-action lawsuit over mental health care, said the plan is costly and doesn’t address the system’s other problems such as staff shortages.

“The new prison building bill that passed the Senate today is extremely problematic and too expensive. Building these mega-prisons will not solve the serious problems facing the prison system: the violence, the chronic understaffing, and the lack of adequate health care,” Ebony Howard, the group’s associate legal director, said in a statement.

Senators who voted against the bill expressed a range of concerns, including cost and the loss of local jobs when existing prisons close.

Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, pointed out that the plan would not replace the state’s only prison for women, a 75-year-old facility that was the subject of a Department of Justice investigation.

The state in 2015 agreed to make numerous physical and policy changes at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women after the U.S. Justice Department said inmates were subjected to an unconstitutional environment of sexual abuse including that officers there coerced inmates into sex and watched them in showers.

“We still have not done anything for the conditions that they live in,” Coleman-Madison said.

Gov. Robert Bentley had made prison construction the centerpiece of his legislative agenda. However, the bill approved by senators differed dramatically from his proposal.

Bentley had proposed an $800 million bond issue to build four prisons. However, some senators had expressed concern about adding $800 million to the state’s debt. The state will still be paying for the facilities by guaranteeing yearly leases up to $13.5 million per facility.

The plan hinges on at least two local authorities agreeing to build two prisons. Ward said he believes there will be interest from Elmore County and one other area.

Bentley praised the bill’s passage as a step in the right direction.

“I understand this bill is a work in progress and my ultimate goal remains the same, and that is to have safe and modern facilities that solve the persistent overcrowding of our prisons that will protect our law enforcement officers and inmates, as well prepare the inmates to successfully transition back into our communities,” Bentley said.

Ward cautioned that the prison system faces additional struggles.

“We are going to have to at some point deal with staffing issues. We are going to have to deal with mental health,” Ward said.

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This story has been corrected to show that the bond issue is $325 million.

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