Your editorial of Jan. 12 was right on the money.

The disaster at Newtown has rightly drawn action from all levels of government. Banning assault weapons and large bullet clips, requiring better background checks, closing gun show registration loopholes all make sense, but what about the violent end of the continuum, the mentally ill person who did the deed? What must we do about our mental health system? There is no one fool-proof solution, but a proven answer: pass legislation to provide Assisted Outpatient Treatment.

Mentally ill people have a brain disease. In particular people with schizophrenia have distorted perception of reality, inappropriate thoughts and behaviors, delusions, hallucinations, they hear internal voices. Within the family a mentally ill member causes havoc. Where do we get a diagnosis? Perhaps he has stopped eating, bathing or dressing. Maybe he is responding to internal “voices”. He just lives in his room or leaves home to live on the street in his car. The family becomes worried that he may hurt himself or someone else. Do you call a doctor, the police, go to the emergency room, look through the yellow pages for a psychiatrist, contact your pastor? People who have a psychiatric disability often become “known” to the neighbors, local police, a teacher. Over time they may have been to the hospital emergency room several times, annoyed the neighbors, had scrapes with the law.

Newtown assailant Adam Lanza had probably shown many of these symptoms. According to a press report his mother had been searching for support, but received none from the Connecticut mental health system. He might have been recognized as a mentally ill person who was at risk to hurt himself or others. A mental health program designed to address persons like Adam Lanza is Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT). It is a program especially for disabled people who resist taking the medications that may control their impulses and was designed and guided, over the years, by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatrist who founded the Treatment Advocacy Center (www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org). It is a court-ordered program that combines a judge with a team of specialists for establishing a treatment program to help this neglected population. It is a “commitment” to a treatment program.

Forty-four states, not including Connecticut, permit use of assisted outpatient treatment. Studies and data from states using AOT prove that it is effective in reducing the incidents and duration of hospitalization, homelessness, arrests, incarcerations, and violent episodes. Last year in the Connecticut General Assembly, the joint committee on the judiciary held a hearing on raised bill, SB452 concerning AOT. It went nowhere.

This is a proven treatment program. Access the website, above, for details. Connecticut should adopt it, perhaps protecting us from another Newtown.

Jack Ritchie

Salisbury