I would be shocked if one of my deputies threw his weapon out the window as he drove to stop a crime in progress. Yet, House and Senate budget committees in Washington are considering taking away weapons, technology and police officers from communities here in Maine and across the country. Equally shocking, they are also considering throwing away some of the most powerful crime prevention investments proven to help kids get the right start in life and become responsible adults instead of criminals. The cuts we make to law enforcement and crime prevention programs today will have a lasting effect on the increase in crime in the very near future.

For example, after-school programs help reduce crime immediately, especially since the “prime time for juvenile crime” is from 3 to 6 p.m. In one study, boys left out of a quality after-school program had six times more criminal convictions compared to those in the program. For kids who do get in serious trouble, quality juvenile delinquency intervention programs cut repeat crime rates in half

Quality pre-kindergarten programs, like Head Start, and quality child care are proven to help kids learn to get along with others, follow directions and start school ready to succeed. One landmark study showed that excluding at-risk kids from a pre-kindergarten program multiplied by five times the risk that they would grow up to be arrested five or more times by age 27.

Despite all this evidence, key members of Congress are proposing to lock in a five-year plan that would, by the fifth year, lock out one of every eight kids in Head Start and child care programs. They’d lock out one out of every five kids served by after-school programs. And, they’d slash by one-sixth aid to schools and job training programs.

Some analysts refer to this as a “five-year cap on discretionary spending,” but it actually means sharply cutting – not simply capping funding and services.

Law enforcement funds are already stretched too thin. This newest proposal, in one year alone, will eliminate the Justice Assistance Grant program, which provides police departments around the state with law enforcement officers, prosecutors, technology and anti-drug funds, cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program by 80 percent and cut juvenile delinquency programs by more than half.

Maine police officers and sheriff’s deputies arrest more than 9,000 young people a year for juvenile crimes. How many more crimes will be committed because there will be 500 fewer children in Maine benefiting from Head Start, 800 fewer children getting decent child care while their parents work, and 900 fewer children able to participate in after-school programs?

I believe in being fiscally responsible and balancing budgets. But if we don’t pay now for both law enforcement and smart investments that steer children away from crime, we will pay dearly later in crime costs and in victims’ lives. This proposal gets the priorities wrong.

That’s why the more than 60 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and crime victims who are members of the statewide anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Maine are urging our state’s congressional delegation to tell House and Senate budget leaders to reject locking in these shortsighted cuts when they draft the budget resolution next week.

In America, we have always sought to make the hopes and fortunes of the next generation better than the ones that came before. Locking in for five years these cuts to programs that help law enforcement protect their communities will only mean increased crime and increased costs to state and local government. Locking in these debilitating reductions in programs proven to help kids get the right start in life will guarantee increased crime rates for years to come.

It would represent a choice to do far less to prepare our children for school and ensure safe activities with caring adults after school at the same time they are taking cops off the streets and eliminating successful intervention programs. If Congress throws children out of proven crime prevention programs now, police officers will be throwing many of them in jail when they grow up.

As law enforcement officers, we don’t believe in waving a white flag. We can’t stand silent while Congress gives up proven law enforcement and crime prevention weapons, and the chance to build safer communities.

Lloyd C. Herrick is the sheriff of Oxford County.

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