DOUBLE DARE: ONE POLICE CHIEF'S RESPONSE

A few weeks back, I wrote a story called "Is DARE a GREAT
loss?"

It was in response to the Aurora Police Department canceling Drug
Abuse Resistance Education, a program it taught to fifth-graders.
There's no lack of support for DARE in the department, but with the
city's eight-figure budget deficit, there is a lack of money.

The story questioned the value of DARE, an anti-drug program with a
spotty record of influencing drug choices. As the U.S. Department of
Education spokeswoman I talked to said, "there isn't any credible
evidence that the (DARE) program works."

Sandwich Police Chief Richard Olson got in touch with me to give his
opinion -- that DARE is, was and will continue to be worth it.

"Anything that will make our job better is a reasonable thing to do,"
he said. "'Serving and Protecting' is what's on our patch, not
'Enforcing.'"

"Unfortunately, for years I've heard the naysayers," said Olson, a
38-year police veteran.

"My No. 1 complaint when I talk to agencies about DARE is that they
don't put anything in its place," he said. "They just say, 'Well, it
doesn't work.'"

To clarify, Olson wasn't talking about Aurora, where the department
wants to reinstate DARE as soon as the budget allows.

Olson said police departments get out of DARE what they put into it.
One major blunder he said departments often make is using officers who
don't particularly care about DARE, but who are burned out on more
dangerous duties, he said.

"Unfortunately, I have seen that happen where agencies have taken
somebody who really doesn't want to be on the street anymore," Olson
said. "I think that's a real disservice. (The students) don't have the
opportunity to be taught by somebody who cares for it as much as the
anticipation they have for it."

Again, not talking specifically about Aurora. But he was surprised
that the major costs of Aurora's DARE were overtime costs.

"When I read that officers were getting overtime for it, that kind of
surprised me because what we do is officers are scheduled to do DARE,"
he said.

This, of course, leads to the point that Sandwich isn't
Aurora.

Population-wise, Aurora is 23 times Sandwich's size. Physically, it's
13 times as large.

Roughly, this gives Sandwich one sworn officer for every 459 people
and Aurora one sworn officer for every 571 people. Add DARE and GREAT
at 46 public and private schools and it's not hard to see why overtime
was used.

However, Sandwich has problems Aurora doesn't. With 16 sworn officers
(including Olson) compared to Aurora's 301, any absence -- like when
two officers were on tour in Iraq -- causes serious manpower issues.

The department's size means Olson has to choose the best use of his
resources. And he chose DARE.

"We've chosen the DARE program as something we can do with our current
staff," he said.

He advises the same to all departments.

"We hear stories here all the time of kids coming in and talking to
the police officer out of the classroom and saying 'My uncle gets
drunk and beats people' which leads us to something in the rest of our
job," he said. "It's not necessarily, 'Did we stop that kid from
smoking pot when he was 16?'"

Kane County, DuPage County, St. Charles, North Aurora and Naperville
all ditched DARE years ago, switching over to a similar program called
Too Good For Drugs. It brings cops and kids together, but studies show
it gets better drug results than DARE does. The Oswego School District
created its own program, called Facing All Choices Together, or FACT.

Aurora Police Chief Greg Thomas said his department was also eyeing a
switch to Too Good For Drugs before the economy tanked.

There are many ways to bring children and police officers together. If
the DARE program wasn't in place, maybe the child with the abusive
uncle would have confided in the Too Good For Drugs officer, the FACT
officer, the school liaison or even Officer Friendly.

The question is not if DARE brings kids and cops together. The
question is if there's a way to do it that also has better results in
keeping kids off drugs.