At a news conference Monday, Salt Lake City Chief of Police Chris Burbank, Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder and county District Attorney Lohra Miller said they want to fight crime before it occurs by making sure children with emotional and/or behavioral problems have access to mental health treatment programs. It's a platform that makes sense.

Undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues can lead to truancy and quitting school, launching youths down the "pathway to crime," said Jeff Kirsch of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national crime-prevention organization representing about 3,000 prosecutors, sheriffs and police chiefs.

And CHIP, a federal program administered by the states to provide coverage for uninsured children, is viewed as essential to identifying and treating at-risk kids.

Congress has until Sept. 30 to reauthorize the program, which has provided cost-effective health care for millions of low-income children in the past decade. But, due to a lack of funds, many remain uninsured, including more than 20,000 children in Utah.

CHIP supporters are seeking $50 billion over the next five years, including funds to expand and improve mental health treatment. And Congress should deliver. It would be money well-spent.

Even from a strictly financial standpoint, renewing the program and making more money available for mental health treatment makes sense: Pay a little now for mental health treatment for children, or a pay a lot more later to incarcerate them as adults.

And from a moral perspective, it's imperative that we protect the most vulnerable among us. But it's not happening. The current insurance program allows for 20 out-patient visits to mental health facilities, or 20 days of in-patient treatment, per year. When a patient reaches the limit, even if the child is on the verge of a breakthrough, treatment is discontinued until the following year.

It's no way to treat a mental illness, or to shrink crime. Our children, and our society, deserve better.