Crime Prevention Should Be A Priority Pro-Dare Popular Program Is Not A Magic Wand, But It Does Pay Dividends

Which should have priority: Preventing crime or writing reports about it afterwards?

The city of Spokane is in a budget crunch. DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education, the popular anti-substance-abuse program for schoolchildren, is on the chopping block. Cutting DARE would save $550,000 in one fell swoop and reduce the need for scrutiny elsewhere in the Police Department’s budget. So administrators want the ax to fall. Only public pressure and the City Council can save this program.

DARE employs just seven, or 2.4 percent, of the Police Department’s 287 officers. DARE officers teach sixth-graders about substance abuse and how to resist peer pressure.

The program makes an impression - when kids are impressionable. Miss McGillicuddy, bless her heart, could try to preach the anti-drug message in between spelling and social studies, but a teacher’s words pale alongside the eye-widening credibility of a DARE officer, who tells kids real-life crime stories from the streets of Spokane. DARE officers also work to show kids that a cop is a friend, someone to look to for help. Plus, they take a healthy message back to the police station: 95 percent of Spokane’s kids are pretty darned decent once you get to know them.

True, a study tracked some DARE graduates and found no dramatic drop in rates of drug abuse. Yet other studies and a flood of personal testimonies indicate DARE does reduce substance abuse and does shift kids’ attitudes for the better.

Is DARE a magic wand? No. But that’s the wrong question. Fighting drugs requires the patience to work for generational change. Policing must include community outreach and crime prevention, and some of that must be aimed at kids.

If DARE dies, those seven officers will revert to driving around in prowl cars. Yet, studies also show that a small change in the number of patrol officers won’t change the crime rate; the only thing that changes is the number of after-the-fact crime reports.

It’s predictable that police administrators would rather not trim the number of police officers in cars, unsuccessful though that magic wand, in fact, has been. But it’s wrong to open fire on one of the few efforts to approach kids constructively. The public should demand administrators find another way to cut $550,000 (that’s 1.9 percent) from the Police Department’s budget.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: More cops on streets should be a priority

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = COLUMN, EDITORIAL - From both sides CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board