DARE TRAINING CENTER TO CLOSE

State Police Blame Funding Problems

Due to a lack of federal funding, the state's only DARE training center is
being disbanded, leaving about 60 percent of Illinois DARE officers without
training in the program's revised drug-prevention education curriculum,
which launches nationwide in the fall.

"We're changing our focus because federal funds for the program have
dwindled," Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Lincoln Hampton said of the
agency's Drug Abuse Resistance Education training center. "We're putting
former DARE employees in divisions like patrol, where they'll have more
direct contact with the public."

Christy Pace, president of the Illinois DARE Officers Association, blames
state officials, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for the center's demise.
Officers who teach DARE to elementary or middle school pupils would have to
go out of state for training--a hurdle that Pace fears will trip up many
programs.

"Many local police chiefs won't want to pay to send their officers out of
state," she said.

As recently as two months ago, Pace said, an official with the Illinois
Department of Human Services told DARE officials that $600,000 budgeted for
training for 2004 would be forthcoming.

"Then last week we find out [they've] pulled the plug," Pace said, adding
that the closing of the center will cancel 11 training sessions scheduled
into April.

While declining to say whether DARE had been promised any money for 2004,
Human Services spokesman Tom Green said $600,000 from the
general-prevention fund was being directed to other programs.

For example, a non-profit group helping establish Project X, the governor's
program designed to eliminate use of the club drug Ecstasy, will get about
$68,000 to begin its work.

This year, the state submitted a request for prevention program funding to
the U.S. Department of Education's Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools,
Green said. Since DARE hasn't met federal grant criteria since 1998, when
the government omitted the program from an eligibility list of
research-based programs with proven track records, state officials decided
to focus on securing funding for programs that do, he said.

This month, police departments in St. Charles and Hanover Park eliminated
their DARE programs, officials said. Geneva and McHenry County are among
localities inching toward replacing the program with an alternative
drug-education program, officials said.

"We have one DARE officer currently," said Geneva Lt. Joe Frega.

"We'd save $48,000 if, instead of hiring a new patrol officer, we took our
DARE officer and put him on patrol. It's a dollars-and-cents thing."

None of the DARE officers with the Arlington Heights Police Department has
received training in the new curriculum, said Cmdr. Richard Neidrich.

"We were waiting to see what the state would do," he said. "I'm very
disappointed."

Although the DARE program remains popular with the community, the
department might have to make changes in it because of local budgetary
constraints, Neidrich said.

Hoffman Estates Sgt. Rich Russo said the department's two DARE officers
have not been trained in the new curriculum, and because of budgetary
concerns, the department probably won't send the officers for recertification.

"We'll continue to teach the old curriculum," he said.

Last fiscal year, when former Gov. George Ryan earmarked $600,000 for DARE,
down from $1.9 million the previous year, state police began charging local
governments for DARE workbooks, officials said.

At the time, DARE officials predicted half the schools and police
departments in the state would drop the program by year's end. A handful of
communities, including Crystal Lake, Evanston and Naperville, did.

Los Angeles-based DARE America is attempting to salvage the program, which
began more than 20 years ago and still reaches 20 million children a year,
said spokesman Ralph Lochridge.

While the umbrella organization works to qualify the new curriculum for
federal funding, it also is trying to secure temporary funding one state at
a time, Lochridge said.

Pace fears it might prove too late for Illinois.

The kids will suffer most if DARE is eliminated and not replaced with
another drug-education prevention program, Pace said.

"DARE ... gives police officers an opportunity to build up a rapport with
children who only see us in a negative light," she said.

Pupils in Hanover Park schools will not be taught drug-prevention education
by police officers next year, said Marlene Berman, a drug-prevention
education specialist with Elgin-based Unit School District 46.

"I don't know who will be teaching the DARE curriculum there. Maybe I'll do
it," she said. "But it won't be a priority and it won't have the same
impact coming from someone not wearing a uniform."