Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

DARE to Say No

Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
With its signature “DARE to keep kids off drugs” slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug education program of the 1980s and 1990s. But behind the cultural phenomenon is the story of how DARE and other antidrug education programs brought the War on Drugs into schools and ensured that the velvet glove of antidrug education would be backed by the iron fist of rigorous policing and harsh sentencing.
Max Felker-Kantor has assembled the first history of DARE, which began in Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint venture between the police department and the unified school district. By the mid-90s, it was taught in 75 percent of school districts across the United States. DARE received near-universal praise from parents, educators, police officers, and politicians and left an indelible stamp on many millennial memories. But the program had more nefarious ends, and Felker-Kantor complicates simplistic narratives of the War on Drugs. He shows how policing entered US schools and framed drug use as the result of personal responsibility, moral failure, and poor behavior deserving of punishment rather than something deeply rooted in state retrenchment, the abandonment of social service provisions, and structures of social and economic inequality.
  • Creators

  • Series

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      February 15, 2024
      Intriguing social chronicle of the DARE anti-drug education program. Felker-Kantor builds on prior work on policing with an account of the stealthy rise and fall of DARE, which began in Los Angeles in 1983 under aggressive chief Daryl Gates. While often ridiculed, the once-ubiquitous DARE programs, which featured officers in uniform as "teachers," normalized the presence of police in everyday life. "DARE attempted to give the police a human face," writes the author, "while simultaneously expanding the scorched-earth policing" of the drug war. Felker-Kantor takes an evenhanded approach, showing how DARE benefited many parties, attracting support from educators, politicians, and donors, as well as police officers who emphasized their bonding experiences with schoolchildren. Early on, few noticed how it concealed the racialized mechanics of "zero tolerance" prohibition and normalized the unnecessary presence of police in schools. In the 1980s, DARE expanded in line with the Reagan era's conservatism, which "placed the family, personal responsibility, and morality at the crux of the drug war." The author documents how DARE accrued political power as it was franchised nationwide, becoming a nonprofit in 1987, while gaining corporate sponsors and a merchandising arm. "By the mid-1990s, DARE had become a cultural icon of its own," writes the author, while ignoring the structural roots of drug abuse and how middle-class suburban students' experience with the program diverged from that of students from marginalized communities. Yet pushback accrued by the late 1990s, due to both parental backlash and studies suggesting the program did not influence behavior. "The continued attention DARE received, whether praise or mocking, demonstrated the deep impact the program had on American society, politics, and culture," writes the author. While his central points can be repetitive, his straightforward account of DARE's insidiously authoritarian growth is insightful and instructive. An approachable consideration of an unexamined aspect of the failed war on drugs.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      March 15, 2024
      Felker-Kantor (Policing Los Angeles, 2018), history professor at Ball State University, covers the comprehensive history of the school curriculum Drug Abuse Resistance Education, called D.A.R.E., and how it became the largest drug prevention program in the U.S. from the 1980s to the late 1990s. D.A.R.E. ""brought the war on drugs directly into the nation's schools and education became an additional weapon in the police arsenal,"" Felker-Kantor writes. Drawing on government policy, educational reports, and other archival sources, he explores how D.A.R.E., which mobilized the police as antidrug education instructors, enhanced the presence of law enforcement in schools and communities--especially immigrant communities and communities of color--and expanded the carceral system, was largely perceived as a political success. Readers interested in the intersections of education systems, surveillance culture, and policing may find Felker-Kantor's research to be key to understanding how the war on drugs expanded policing to the American school system, the effects of which still linger today.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading