Law enforcement leaders in Lewiston-Auburn are bringing attention to the link between kids, poverty and crime. Studies show children who live in sustained economic hardship are two-and-a-half times more likely to engage in criminal activity later on. The police are asking for some help from Congress.

The city pool is open for business in Lewiston, where kids from a local rec program regularly come over to take a swim. If the latest edition of the Maine Kids Count report is correct, one in three of these kids under age 18 is living in poverty in Lewiston.

And in the neighboring city of Auburn the numbers are only slightly better: one in four. The twin cities have the highest rates of childhood poverty in the state. And while Androscoggin County Sheriff Guy Desjardins points out that most kids who grow up poor never become criminals, he says he sees the effects of long-term poverty and loss of opportunity at the Androscoggin County Jail, where criminal activity is generational, in some cases, and where incarceration costs about $100 per inmate per day.

"I've seen at least two generations within the jail that I've had contact with, and as a matter of fact there are a couple of inmates that, without mentioning names that we have in our facility, that I was involved with when we were teenagers, and they just went through the process and they're going through the situation," Desjardins says.

A study by Cambridge University found that boys from the poorest quarter of all families were two-and-a-half times more likely to be convicted of a violent crime as adults than were boys from the wealthier three-quarters. In Maine, the poorest quarter of families would be those with incomes under $35,000.

Auburn Police Chief Phil Crowell says there are steps communities -- and even Congress -- can take to help them. "We know that every dollar that we invest right now into early childhood education is going to reduce -- it's going to be a return investment of $18 million in the future that we're not spending on incarcerating our young people in our jails."

Chief Crowell and Sheriff Desjardins are members of Fight Crime: Invest In Kids, a national anti-crime organization with more than 120 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and violence survivors in Maine, and more than 5,000 nationwide. One of the group's goals is to get Congress to support the extension of the current child tax credit for low-income working families, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

An expansion of the tax credit last year provided help to an additonal 60,000 Maine children who could lose the benefits if Congress takes no action. But critics say it's not the best tool for preventing poverty -- or crime. "The best way to get out of poverty is not through a tax credit, but it's through a good-paying job," says Terren Bragdon, the executive director of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative advocacy group.

Bragdon says rather than extend the many tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, Congress would do better by children to reduce their future debt. "One of the things that I am most concerned about when it comes to Maine kids is what is the federal debt and legacy that this Congress is leaving them?"

Currently, families only get the refundable credit up to a maximum of $1,000 per child once they have earned at least $3,000. If Congress does not act, that threshold will increase to about $13,000. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, released a written statement saying she has introduced legislation to expand the tax credit to include more low-income families and will continue to push to see it permanently enacted into law.