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The D.A.R.E. Program, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, was started in the Los Angeles Unified School District by Chief Daryl Gates of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1983. Gates recognized that police were unable to cure the drug problem that was sweeping America by arresting pushers and users, so he set out to educated students in Los Angeles schools.

Gates received the full cooperation of the Los Angeles school district, and the program began with the 1983-84 school term. During the first year, ten officers taught the new curriculum to more than 8,000 students in 50 Los Angeles elementary schools. By 1986, the program had grown to reach all 345 elementary and 58 junior high schools in the city.

Based on his success, Gates invited other jurisdictions to send officers to Los Angeles for 80 hours of intensive DARE training. This training is now used by police departments in all 50 states. There are now at least 3,000 instructors in the United States, 150 of whom are with law enforcement agencies in the state of Oklahoma.

Officers who teach in the DARE program must volunteer for the job on the basis of a solid commitment to preventing substance abuse among young people, and must have a clean record, a minimum of two years street experience, maturity and good communication and organization skills.

The goal of the DARE program is to prevent substance abuse among school children. With that goal in mind, the program targets children before they are likely to have been led by their peers to experiment with tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. By teaching them at an age when they are most receptive to drug prevention education, project DARE seeks to prevent adolescent drug use and to reduce drug trafficking by eliminating the demand for drugs.

The objectives of DARE are to equip elementary and junior high students with the skills for recognizing and resisting social pressures to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, and drugs; to help students develop self-esteem; to develop student skills in risk assessment and decision making; to build students interpersonal and communications skills.

One of the important by-products of Project DARE is the positive impact of uniformed law enforcement officers, working in classrooms in a nonthreatening, preventative role, upon the image of law enforcement in the community.

 

 

Enid Police Department - D.A.R.E.

301 W. Owen K. Garriott Rd.

Enid, Oklahoma   7371

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