Crime may not pay. But like it or not, we do pay for crime.

Maine spends about $163 million a year to house, feed and supervise our incarcerated criminals.

When we view national corrections costs the numbers are staggering — more than $57 billion in 2010.

Sadly, a lot of people don’t become better citizens after going to prison. For some, they simply learn how to become better criminals.

That’s why we have to take every step we can to reduce crime before it happens.

One of our recommendations about the type of program that can make a difference in setting at-risk kids in a positive direction and ultimately preventing crime may be surprising to some people: Start early with the highest quality education.

We know from our own collective experiences, and research proves, that high-quality early learning programs not only help kids start school ready to learn, but can also make a difference in reducing future violent crime, prison costs and taxpayers dollars. That is a win-win-win in our book.

Early education is not only vital for the development of individual children and their later academic successes; it is also a cost-effective crime-prevention strategy. Simply put: High-quality early learning for kids today builds stronger and safer communities tomorrow.

Over the course of nearly 40 years, researchers studied children who attended Michigan’s Perry Preschool along with similar at-risk children who were left out.

They found that at-risk children who did not participate in the high-quality program were five times more likely to be chronic offenders by age 27 than children who did attend. By age 40, those who did not attend the program were two times more likely to become chronic offenders with more than 10 arrests. Students in the high-quality program also have much better academic successes.

Equally impressive are results from studies of Chicago’s Child- Parent Centers, which has served more than 100,000 3- and 4-year olds since 1967.

These studies found that by age 18, children who did not participate in the programs were 70 percent more likely to have been arrested for a violent crime. By age 26, they were 27 percent more likely to have been arrested for a felony and 39 percent more likely to have spent time in jail or prison. It is estimated this high-quality program helped prevent 33,000 crimes by the time that these children reached age 18.

Economic analysis of this program shows it produced nearly $11 in benefits to society for every dollar spent, with $5 of those benefits from reduced crime costs.

Fortunately, Maine has highquality pre-kindergarten programs in many of our communities — and that’s important, because these programs must be of high quality to make a real difference in the lives of children. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough of them.

In 2011, only 38 percent of Maine’s 4-year-olds attended a public pre-kindergarten or Head Start.

As law-enforcement leaders, we have seen that anything we do to improve the education of our children reduces the number of children we see in our system. Ramping up the quality of early learning is one of the most effective tools for steering kids toward success.

If we invest in our kids through high-quality early care and education today, we’ll have more money for the most important priorities instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on crime fighting and corrections.

For all of these reasons, we urge Maine lawmakers to protect and, when possible, increase public investments in high-quality early learning programs.

As Congress begins the process of reauthorizing Head Start this year, we urge Senators Collins and King and Congresswoman Pingree to work for continued quality improvements in and access to these vital programs for Maine’s youngest and most at-risk citizens.

MICHAEL FIELD is Bath police chief, RICHARD RIZZO is Brunswick police chief and JOEL MERRY is Sagadahoc County sheriff.