EFFORT FOILS DRUGS, SAY KIDS, COPS WHO DARE

Imagine a police officer standing in front of more than 1,400 people to
deliver an inspirational message, and closing with the words, "I love you."

The officer was Memphis Police Director Walter Crews and his words were
aimed at Memphis City Schools children graduating from an anti-drug,
anti-violence program known as DARE.

DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Education - is a classroom program taught by
police officers in about 80 percent of school districts nationwide, but its
effectiveness has been questioned.

In Memphis, however, DARE gets two thumbs up across the landscape, from the
police director to students like Cromwell Elementary fifth-grader Olufemi
Osikoya.

"It told me what kind of people can be my friends, and what kind cannot,"
said Olufemi, honored at the program's Dec. 13 graduation for writing a
first-place essay.

Lt. Brenda G. Patterson, one of the department's original DARE officers in
1994 who returned to the program as a supervisor last June, provided a
typical Memphis view:

"I know it is an effective program, I know it is good for children, and I
know it is something they need," Patterson said.

One of the criticisms leveled at DARE, founded in 1983 in Los Angeles, is
that there is little research-based evidence that the program actually
deters youths from drug abuse.

"Well, who does the studies?" countered Crews, who started DARE in Memphis.

"You ever heard of NORML?" Crews continued, referring to the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "They are a lot of the
people that are attacking DARE because they know and we know you can't
measure prevention."

Common sense says having police officers teach the 17-lesson, once-a-week
course to fifth or sixth graders is a good, positive,
relationship-building, community-policing thing, he says.

"After all, 1,500 kids who have been exposed to some of the most wholesome
methods of problem-solving and decision-making can't be doing something
wrong," Crews said. "It's got to be the right thing to do, it's got to be
the thing that we have to do for our kids."

A Los Angeles nonprofit organization, DARE America, provides the curriculum.

Through its Office of Drug Education, the Memphis department currently
provides eight DARE-trained officers to teach the lessons, Patterson said
in her Poplar Plaza office. With that staff, the program was taught in 19
city schools during the first semester of the school year, she said. It
will be taught in 20 others during the second semester.

In addition to DARE, the officers teach a program called GREAT - Gang
Resistance Education And Training. That program targets seventh-graders and
is fund ed by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
Patterson said.

The Memphis department pays DARE officers' salaries, but drug money seized
by the narcotics and vice unit pays for the children's T-shirts, officer
training and other needs, Patterson said.

Roars of approval, and not a single critical word, were heard at the recent
assembly of DARE graduates at Christ the Rock Metro Church.

Crump Elementary fifth-grade teachers Shakara Williams and Catherine Brooks
said the program's use of role playing and high school students to talk to
the younger children were effective.

Extending the lessons to lower grades, they said, would be helpful.

In fact, DARE America is revising the curriculum in the fall of 2003,
Patterson said.

Changes include reducing the lessons to 12 from 17, and offering some
lessons for the kindergarten through fourth grades, she said. Memphis will
extend lessons to the lower grades if time permits, she said.

Tennessee State Trooper Wayne Woodard, a DARE training mentor, said
extending the program to upper grades would help answer critics.

"You can't hit them just once, you're going to have to hit them in the
middle and high schools too," Woodard said.

Sgt. Jackie Sykes, a McKenzie, Tenn., officer who is president of the
Tennessee DARE Officers Association, said the changes in the program will
make it more research-based.

But positive reactions from children and the rapport built with students
are two benefits science may not reflect, Sykes said.

"I don't know where it's written in the Bible, but you know it says that he
who does God's work gets God's wages," Sykes said. "When I see those
smiling faces, I feel like I've got God's wages."

Stephen Nielsen, president of the Memphis Bible Institute and evangelism
pastor for Christ the Rock, gave the keynote speech at the DARE graduation
- - and another positive vote for DARE.

"To be honest with you, I wish I could have had something like that in
younger years," Nielsen said. "My younger brother died because of drugs, so
I wish he had some of those things."