PORTLAND – Citing 17 deaths in Maine jails and prisons in the past five years, advocates for the mentally ill have called for the state to improve the treatment of sick prisoners and keep them out of jail to begin with.

“Any other publicly funded and publicly governed institution in Maine where Maine citizens are housed and for whom government is responsible, that had 17 deaths would be investigated and possibly lose its license,” says a report issued by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Maine.

The report said community-based mental health services have been slow to materialize since the state scaled back widespread hospitalization for mentally ill people.

“The fact that Maine’s correctional facilities are the largest providers of mental health services in Maine document[s] the failure of deinstitutionalization and the failure of the state to meet its promise to people with mental illness and their families,” the report said.

Of the 17 who died behind bars, 14 committed suicide and the others died from issues associated with drugs, alcohol and illness. Eight have died since January.

“Unfortunately, jails and prisons are the largest providers of mental health services in the nation and the least trained, the least equipped and the most under-resourced. This must change,” said the report.

Many of the 25 percent to 35 percent of Maine prisoners who have mental illness are in jail because of behavior related to that illness, advocates say, and that behavior is better addressed through treatment rather than punishment.

The report calls for a series of initiatives, including:

. Build an additional 24 beds at the new state mental hospital now under construction in Augusta for patients who would otherwise be in jail.

. Spend the $9 million needed to fully implement the results of a legislative study that called for training judges on how to divert mentally ill people from the criminal justice system and improving transitional services for convicts released into the community.

. Require prisons to treat, rather than punish, people who act out because of mental illness.

. Increase the state reimbursement for jails that receive national accreditation.

. Conduct independent reviews of the mental health services in the state prisons and all 15 county jails and implement any recommendations that stem from them.

The Maine Sheriff’s Association and Maine County Commissioners Association cooperated in the preparation of the report, but some members of those groups worried it could send the wrong message.

“This report seems to suggest or at least could lead legislators to conclude that the trick is to convert jails into quasi-mental health clinics,” said Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion, president of the Maine Sheriff’s Association.

“We have some concerns that that’s inconsistent with the mission of a jail. What’s needed instead is to increase the number of acute-care beds in the community for those experiencing mental health crisis.”