D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, a cooperative effort of local law enforcement and the schools aimed at providing students with the necessary skills to be able to avoid drugs and violence.

The beginnings of D.A.R.E. go back to 1983 in Los Angeles California when the Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District combined efforts to provide a program for 5th and 6th graders to teach resistance skills. Starting with 10 officers, the program has grown to all fifty states and 43 foreign countries, U.S. Territories and possessions. Over 70% of school districts in the United States and the rest of the world are served by over 26,000 trained D.A.R.E. Officers. Among them is our own Officer William Maddox, a 23 year veteran of the Police Department and Officer Scott Kedzior, a 20 year veteran of the Police Department.

D.A.R.E. in Pekin began in 1987 and served the 7 primary buildings. Since the school districts reorganization in 1989, where all 6th graders are in two buildings, D.A.R.E. serves the public schools 6th graders at Washington and Wilson Schools. D.A.R.E. also serves St. Joseph and Good Shepherd Schools. One junior high school class at St. Joseph is also served with a program specifically designed for the middle school student. In addition, the D.A.R.E. Parent Program, which teaches effective parenting skills is offered to all parents in the community. One of the major users of the parenting class is the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons. The Pekin Federal Correction Institution and its adjacent women's Work Camp is the only Federal facility to offer the parenting program to its inmates.

In 1994, a new program, Violence Education and Gang Awareness (V.E.G.A.) Was introduced with pilot classes in St. Joseph, Good Shepherd and Wilson Schools. The V.E.G.A. curriculum teaches non-violent conflict resolution and gang resistance skills. That program was expanded in the 1996-97 school year to all 5th grade classes in the public schools.

This year, D.A.R.E. will serve it's five thousandth student. The first group of D.A.R.E. students are now juniors in college. The question now is, "Does D.A.R.E. work?" The answer is YES!!! A recent study of over 3000 junior high school students proves that D.A.R.E., if provided at the grade school, middle school and high school levels, does work in helping kids to kids to resist drugs and violence. The Pekin Police Department is currently studying how to implement the middle and high school programs in Pekin.