LAPD Agrees to Shrink DARE Program

The LAPD’s longtime drug-abuse prevention program DARE will be reduced in size but not eliminated under a compromise struck between police officials and the Police Commission.

Commission President Rick Caruso had said last week he was prepared to essentially scrap DARE to free up more officers to combat gangs and narcotics-related crime.

But on Tuesday, a last-ditch effort by police officials to save the high-profile DARE program proved successful.

The commission agreed to allow DARE to keep 44 officers--enough to continue its elementary school programs. Junior high and high school programs will be cut, except at a few magnet schools.

DARE has 119 budgeted positions but has been getting by with about 70 officers because of LAPD staffing shortages that have resulted in positions being shifted. Mayor James K. Hahn had earlier proposed a city budget for next year that would in essence make the vacancies permanent, capping DARE at 74 officers.

Because the Los Angeles Police Department remains short-staffed, commissioners earlier this year had proposed taking all but about half a dozen officers out of DARE, which deploys officers to schools to educate children on the perils of drug use. The program was created by the LAPD in 1983.

Some experts have argued that DARE’s effectiveness is limited. But LAPD officials see it as one of the department’s proudest accomplishments and one of the few focusing on crime prevention.

Even when pressed by the Police Commission, LAPD brass were loath to let DARE be gutted for fear that it would never be reinstated.

Their resistance frustrated Caruso, who wanted to take positions from DARE to bolster narcotics field enforcement units, which have been cut especially severely.

Caruso had argued that narcotics units have lost too many officers, and should be restored at DARE’s expense.

But Tuesday’s agreement seemed to close the issue by shifting at least 35 positions from DARE to specialized units.

Police officials, however, were not successful in one proposal they had tried to sell the commission: They had suggested one means of saving DARE would be to gut juvenile narcotics units.

Given that the whole point of the effort was to strengthen narcotics enforcement, the proposal “was not in the spirit of what we asked,” commission Executive Director Joe Gunn told acting Chief Mike Bostic at Tuesday’s meeting.

In the end, juvenile narcotics was allowed to keep its field-enforcement officers, and LAPD officials promised to preserve the DARE officers through cuts elsewhere.

A final twist in the DARE saga came just as the commission was finishing its deliberations.

Community activist Ted Hayes rose to speak. Hayes frequently comments on nearly every item on the commission’s agenda--not always on point--but he rarely draws much of a response from commissioners.

On Tuesday, though, Hayes asked why Los Angeles Unified School District police were not trained as DARE officers, since they were on school campuses anyway.

Caruso sat up straight with a surprised look on his face. “That’s a very good point!” he said. “That’s a good idea. Mr. Hayes has a good idea!”

Caruso then ordered commission staff to draft a letter to district officials suggesting that school police officers be trained in DARE.