Paying the Price: An investigative series looking at Nebraska's prisons

OMAHA -- Nebraska's prison inmate population is growing faster than anywhere else in the nation, way out of sync with nearly every other state.

And the smoking gun behind much of that growth — and the millions of dollars that those extra inmates are costing Nebraska taxpayers — is a 2009 state law that created new gun crimes and toughened penalties. The law also helped steer hundreds of offenders from federal prisons into the state system, adding to the tab for Nebraska taxpayers.

OMAHA -- Lovell Brock would be the first to admit his own bad choices are largely the reason he’s been imprisoned three times in Nebraska, the first at age 16 for a pair of drive-by shootings.

But the recently released inmate also believes the path he ultimately took to prison was laid out before him long before he ever ran afoul of the law.

As the years behind bars piled up, Anthony Washington has had lots of time to think about what he'd tell his 12-year-old self if he could go back in time.

Your true "gang," he'd tell the boy, are the coaches and other kids you're wrestling with in North Omaha, not the criminal enterprise that is luring you to a life on the streets.

When Shakur Abdullah speaks to prison inmates who are preparing to transition back to society, he counsels them not to give up hope they can turn their lives around.

And the public shouldn't give up on them either, he says. People can be redeemed.

A recent meeting of the Omaha 360 anti-gun violence coalition began with a grim rundown from Omaha police precinct captains and the gang unit chief on the latest shootings — among them the slaying of a 22-year-old and critical wounding of two others.

But the focus then quickly turned to how to prevent the next shooting.

OMAHA — Gang members arrested in Omaha for years lived in fear of having their gun crime cases taken “across the street” — slang for moving from the county courthouse to the federal courts.

That shift meant the offenders would be subject to federal gun laws, which carried more severe penalties than used to be available under Nebraska law. And they would do their prison time in some federal facility, far from Nebraska.