AUGUSTA – A legislative committee is calling for a special meeting to explore the rash of suicides that have taken the lives of five inmates this year.

Members of the Criminal Justice Committee said they need to determine whether new policies approved last year are being implemented and identify what else needs to be done.

The committee spent much of last summer and the past session studying the treatment of the mentally ill in county jails and state prisons.

Some of the resulting recommendations – like offering a better array of psychotropic medications – were adopted, though the Legislature only approved $65,000 in funding for a pilot program at a single county jail.

Four county jail inmates and one state prisoner have killed themselves since April 8. All apparently suffered from mental illness.

“We have to do something,” said Rep. Edward Povich, D-Ellsworth, the committee’s House chair. “We studied this for two years, for crying out loud. What’s the sense of going through the process. It’s reckless. We’re just playing with fire.”

The committee requested the approval of legislative leaders to meet at the end of August or early September, but has been put off.

Sen. President Richard Bennett, R-Norway, said legislative leaders have informed all committees that they should not expect to meet off-session except in extremely urgent circumstances.

He said the expense – roughly $2,000 – for special meetings flies in the face of the Legislature’s effort to deal with a $200 million shortfall.

Bennett instead asked the Criminal Justice Committee chairmen to wait until later in September so the committee could conduct business when called into special session to deal with the budget or to confirm appointments.

Sen. Michael McAlevey, R-Waterboro, Senate chair of the committee, is disappointed with the delay. He said prisoners are often a low priority, particularly when funding is scarce.

“There’s not much of a constituency for people in prison, but it’s our responsibility,” he said. “We make the laws to put them there. We make the laws to keep them there, and we have a responsibility to keep them as safe as possible.”

Carol Carothers, executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Maine, said a special committee meeting to study jail suicides might at least initiate a process that can lead to change in the next session.

The committee could instruct prison and jail officials to gather data for future debates and policy decisions, she said.

“Five dead people just in this year is a lot, and this problem isn’t going away,” she said.

Inmates have killed themselves at the Kennebec County Jail, the Maine State Prison, and the Somerset County Jail, while two inmates hanged themselves at the Waldo County Jail.