Well, I opened my big mouth last week and am now hated by parents and police officers alike in Denville, New Jersey.
It seems the Mayor of Denville (my former home town) decided to cut personnel in the Police Department. The Chief of Police then decided the three people being cut would mean the DARE program must be cut in Denville schools. At the following public meeting, the parents arrived in great numbers to protest the cuts (I'd like to link to the original story, but it's archived).
I wrote a letter to the editor, something I have never done. They emailed me back the next day asking if I could lengthen it to an op-ed piece. I did, and they published it last Friday. Basically, I cited the research and findings that DARE isn't working, including the GAO report from 2003. It appeared in the paper on Friday, but did not appear on the paper's web page (sorry, no link).
I've been peeking in to read the letters to the editor though, and wanted to share. This one in particular contains a comment written by a police officer who also emailed me directly. While his letter to me was a bit nicer than the comments, I'm still left bewildered by how anyone can think my personal feelings have entered into this at all.
So, why can't we let go of programs when presented with evidence that they are ineffective? I suppose it has to do with the idea of "buy in". Maybe it's that people feel so strongly about DARE, they find it hard to believe it doesn't do anything. A police officer once told me that she didn't care what the research said--she knew DARE worked and helped keep kids off drugs. I didn't try to change her mind, because I knew I couldn't--just as I can't change the mind of at least one police officer in Northern New Jersey.
(And it is not lost on me that by linking to the article above I have allowed the public and our blog readers--all 8 of them, and by "them" I mean "us"... the ones who write it--to see behind the mask and know my secret identity!)
5 comments:
You did the right thing. I think that part of our job is to promote evidence-based policy.
This is my favorite quote. The Township of Hanover has had thousands of students thoughout the years not use drugs due to a combination of DARE and parenting(Data anyone??).
People are very afraid of crime and drugs. Unfortunately, programs like this provide a false sense of security. Worse, they take away monies that could be better used for programs that work.
**Don't worry about the identity thing - it is pretty easy to figure out who I am. That is why I had to truncate my last post.
DARE is a feel-good program for people and I think the muddles the ability to think clearly about the effects is may (not) have. Parents like the idea of Officer Friendly teaching their kids and being a positive influence in the schools. You can cut cops from a lot of places, but from a school-based program! For shame.
ps- ShockProf is Christina?!?!? I'm shocked, prof.
While I was talking to my mom about this before I wrote it, and she thought that parents might be upset because they don't want to take responsibility for educating their kids about ANYTHING, much less things like drug use (or, God forbid, sex). There may be some of that at work--I'm going to keep watching the letters to the editor and see what else pops up.
Good for you. Do you have your original op-ed saved somewhere so that you can post it?
A funny anti-DARE story for you:
A few months ago I was walking into the grocery store with Maya in tow when I was greeted at the entrance by two DARE volunteers looking for donations. (You know, it's the same folding table normally occupied by Girl Scouts during cookie-selling season.) Determined not to get into a DARE debate with them, I put on my most frazzled, harried-mom expression, smiled wearily, and shook my head as I passed them, hoping they'd take the hint that I was *much* too busy with parenting and grocery shopping to talk with them.
So far, so good.
But then on my way out, one of the volunteers turned up the heat:
"Excuse me, ma'am? I see that you've got your hands full, but I wanted to take a minute of your time to tell you about some of the wonderful things the DARE program does for our kids."
Annoyed, but still determined not to rain on their parade, I replied, "Oh, no thank you."
But she pressed on: "Well, we have some DARE merchandise here if you'd like to take a look, and your money will go to support DARE programs that help keep our kids drug-free. We've got calendars, bumper stickers --"
I couldn't resist any longer. That was all the poor woman was able to utter before, a la Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, out it came: word vomit.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, and I respect what you are trying to do, but there is a MOUNTAIN of empirical evidence to suggest that DARE does not work. Evaluation research conducted over the last decade indicates that there IS NO deterrent effect of DARE programs. It just isn't effective in reducing substance abuse among adolescents. I'm a criminologist, and I just can't in good conscience give my money to support a program that doesn't work, no matter how much people want to believe in it."
Stunned, the woman just stared at me. I immediately felt terrible -- like I had suggested selling dimebags with school lunches or something -- so I offered a meager, "Good luck with your efforts, though."
As I walked away, I could feel their eyes on me. I knew they were thinking, "How could someone not want to keep kids off of drugs? Especially someone with kids herself?!" It's this mindset that propels a lot of ill-conceived and ineffective crime policies: How could someone not want safer streets? How could someone not want to keep sex offenders away from kids? As we all know, there often is a disconnect between this type of (usually political) rhetoric and the empirical evidence.
Still, this knowledge didn't make me feel any better about my little anti-DARE rant. Perhaps I should have run home, printed out the GAO report, and taken it back to them??
Damn it...Our kids are going to be druggies.
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