The rate of prison suicides in Massachusetts is five times greater than the national rate, according to local lawmakers and activists who met at the State House yesterday to advocate for the humane treatment of prisoners through two new bills they hope will drastically reduce the startling figure.

The two bills are inspired by an outbreak of 15 inmate suicides since 2005 as well as last year’s 513 jailhouse self-mutilations, said National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts public policy director Toby Fisher.

“Five-hundred-thirteen mutilations,” Fisher said. “This is under supervision. This is outrageous. . . . It’s time to take care of people.”

“What has been done has not come close to fixing the hemorrhaging crisis,” said Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services Director Leslie Walker. “Instead of helping them, the department has chosen, instead, to punish them.”

Walker said prison workers can prevent suicide by paying closer attention to prison who mutilate themselves.

During the last 10 years, more than 3,200 inmates have purposely injured themselves, The Boston Globe reported earlier this week.

Up to one-quarter of the state’s inmates suffer from some mental illness, and the number rises to 80 percent when combined with drug and alcohol addictions, said State Rep. Ruth Balser (D – Newton).

Balser said the bills would provide training for corrections staff to react to and treat mentally ill inmates.

“[Each act] recognizes that correctional officers do not know how to handle [destructive] behavior,” Balser said, claiming past attempts to reform the prison system have failed since the mid-19th Century. “There is much we can do . . . for those individuals who are sick and in the custody of the state.”

Others said the state must provide rehabilitative services for the mentally ill instead of placing them in prison.

“Jail is no place for the mentally ill,” Balser said.

Dorchester’s Louis D. Brown Peace Institute program Director Milton Jones said all members of society, including students, should pursue better conditions for the mentally ill because the problem is an ethical issue that deserves more attention.

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” Jones said. “There’s a problem on both sides of the weapon.”

“Students ought to recognize they are our future,” he added. “This is a social issue. This is a moral issue.”