For the past two years State Representative Mike Lawlor (D-Conn.), Chair of the Connecticut House Judiciary Committee has been working with the Council of State Governments and many others to develop a response to the recent sudden increase in the number of mentally ill persons coming in contact with the criminal justice system. The goal is to end the vicious cycle that keeps returning the mentally ill to jail.

Their report was released in June and prompted a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The hearing testimony is online.

The report is very impressive. So is the list of groups and individuals who developed it.

Some findings of the project: At Rikers Island, the length of stay for the average inmate was 42 days. For the mentally ill inmate, the average stay was 215 days. In 1955, the population in the state's mental health hospitals peaked at 559,000. In 1999, it dropped to less than 80,000.