D.A.R.E. | The REAL Reason They Were in Your School
Uncover the startling evolution of LAPD intelligence, revealing how the DARE program surveillance mechanisms were born from the ashes of political espionage after the RFK assassination, shifting from clandestine operations to a seemingly innocuous classroom presence.
Key Takeaways
- The D.A.R.E. program's origins are deeply intertwined with the LAPD's intelligence apparatus, which developed after the RFK assassination to control information.
- Facing legal challenges, the LAPD allegedly funneled surveillance data to organizations like the Western Goals Foundation, adapting its methods under different guises.
- Despite research showing its ineffectiveness, the D.A.R.E. program expanded globally, with critics pointing to its 'confession box' as a tool for surveillance.
- The program's enduring success may lie not in drug education, but in its established network for intelligence gathering within schools.
When the clock strikes twelve, the veil thins. Welcome to Midnight Signals, where we delve into the shadows of history and the unexplained. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on a program many of us encountered in our youth: D.A.R.E. But what was the REAL reason they were in your school? We uncover the surprising and often chilling connections between historical police surveillance and modern educational initiatives.
The Legacy of Surveillance: From RFK to the Classroom
Our journey begins in the tumultuous aftermath of the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. As evidence vanished under the watchful eyes of rising police figures, a powerful lesson was learned: controlling information meant controlling the narrative. This era saw the birth of an elite spy network within the Los Angeles Police Department, initially tasked with monitoring civil unrest but quickly evolving into a formidable domestic surveillance machine. This unit, the Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDI), began building extensive dossiers on activists, journalists, and politicians, operating with little to no oversight.
As Russ Chamberlin often states on Midnight Signals, "When you control the files, you control the truth." This principle seemed to guide the PDI. According to court records, PDI abandoned its mission almost immediately, shifting its focus to what Russ calls "extralegal operations" and "building dossiers on everyone." This clandestine apparatus operated beyond legal boundaries, leading to public outcry and eventual court orders demanding the destruction of millions of surveillance files.
Information Laundering and the Western Goals Foundation
Facing legal restrictions, the infrastructure of surveillance didn't disappear; it adapted. Evidence suggests that the LAPD's intelligence records were allegedly funneled to the Western Goals Foundation, a private entity critics argue functioned as a domestic intelligence agency. This allowed the monitoring of various groups to continue, cloaked in a corporate guise. This practice highlights a recurring theme on Midnight Signals: "This isn't about conspiracy theories. It's about what happens when police decide the rules don't apply to them."
D.A.R.E.: A New Mask for an Old System?
When legal challenges threatened to dismantle the domestic surveillance machine, a strategic pivot occurred. The infrastructure found a more palatable mask: drug education. By embedding uniformed officers in elementary schools, a new system of intelligence gathering was established under the guise of public safety. This initiative, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, created a direct line into the private lives of families.
The 'Confession Box' and Bypassing Parental Bonds
The D.A.R.E. program introduced controversial elements like the infamous "DARE boxes." Critics rightly called it a "literal confession box, a mechanism that effectively bypassed the parent-child bond." This allowed students to leave private notes, ostensibly for support, but viewed by many as a sophisticated surveillance tool. The legal justification for undercover officers in schools was tenuous; "You can't send undercover cops into schools without probable cause, they ruled," as Russ notes. Yet, D.A.R.E. found a way.
Ineffectiveness and Suppressed Data
What is truly alarming is the curriculum itself. Decades of data, including studies commissioned by the Department of Justice and published in academic journals, found D.A.R.E. to be ineffective. Astonishingly, research indicated that the anti-drug curriculum was actually counterproductive, making children more likely to try drugs. "Scientists have repeatedly shown that the program did not work," Russ emphasizes. Despite this, the program's corporate structure and political alliances allowed it to expand into a global juggernaut. Reports suggest attempts were made to suppress these findings, with the program reportedly intimidating journalists and academic publications to hide its failures.
The Enduring Signal: More Than Just Drug Education
Established as a non-profit, D.A.R.E. America could accept corporate donations, mirroring modern police foundations and enabling significant fundraising and expansion. The focus quickly shifted to teaching officers how to raise money, rather than on effective drug prevention. The true enduring success of D.A.R.E., it seems, lies not in its stated educational goals, but in its function as a regulated surveillance network embedded within schools. As Russ Chamberlin concludes, "If it walks like surveillance and talks like control, it probably isn't about drugs." Join us on Midnight Signals as we continue to explore these chilling historical enigmas and stories that defy explanation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the connection between the DARE program and surveillance?
Critics argue that the D.A.R.E. program, particularly its 'confession box' element, served as a mechanism for intelligence gathering and surveillance, bypassing traditional parental oversight.
How did the LAPD's intelligence operations lead to the DARE program?
After legal restrictions threatened the LAPD's intelligence division, a pivot occurred, embedding officers in schools under the guise of drug education, creating a new avenue for information gathering.
Was the DARE program effective at preventing drug use?
Multiple studies indicate that the D.A.R.E. curriculum was ineffective and, in some cases, counterproductive to its stated goal of drug prevention.
Who was Darryl Gates and what was his role in DARE program surveillance?
Darryl Gates, a former LAPD chief, was instrumental in building the department's intelligence division, which critics allege laid the groundwork for surveillance tactics later seen in programs like D.A.R.E.
Russ Chamberlin (0:01): 06/04/1968. A 15 year old boy walks into the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles with a camera around his neck. He's on assignment for his high school newspaper. Senator Robert F. Kennedy is giving a speech, and the kid's job is to capture it on film.
Russ Chamberlin (0:17): After the speech ends, the boy follows Kennedy through the hotel kitchen, snapping photos, then gunshots. The senator collapses. In the chaos, the teenager keeps shooting, not bullets, but frames. He documents everything, the crowd, the blood, the struggle as a former NFL player named Rosie Greer wrestles the gunman to the ground. The LAPD arrives.
Russ Chamberlin (0:42): They detain the boy. All three rolls of film are confiscated. Two months later, the department reportedly burns 2,410 photographs from the investigation. Ceiling panels with bullet holes, destroyed. X rays of those panels, gone.
Russ Chamberlin (0:58): Spectrographic analyses of the bullets, erased. A young officer named Darryl Gates was working in the intelligence division when this happened. He watched as evidence vanished. He learned something important that night. When you control the files, you control the truth.
Russ Chamberlin (1:14): This isn't about conspiracy theories. It's about what happens when police decide the rules don't apply to them. Gates would spend the next fifteen years building something unprecedented, a domestic spy network that critics say operated outside the law, beyond oversight, answerable to no one. And when that network was finally exposed and ordered destroyed, he found a way to bring it back. He just needed the right cover story.
Russ Chamberlin (1:40): Gates climbed fast through the LAPD ranks. After overseeing the intelligence division, he made assistant chief. Journalists who covered him used words like narcissist, egomaniac, paranoid. His ego was beyond belief, one reporter said. But ego alone doesn't build empires.
Russ Chamberlin (2:00): Gates had something more dangerous, absolute loyalty from the officers beneath him. The intelligence division split into two branches. One handled organized crime, the other, called the Public Disorder Intelligence Division, PDI for short, was supposed to monitor riots and civil unrest. Instead, it became something else entirely. According to court records, PDI abandoned its mission almost immediately.
Russ Chamberlin (2:27): Officers started building dossiers on journalists, labor unions, civil rights groups, anti war activists. They even spied on the mayor. This wasn't federal surveillance. This was a municipal police department accused of operating like the CIA. Gates deployed hundreds of undercover officers around the world.
Russ Chamberlin (2:47): Not the FBI, not a federal agency. The Los Angeles Police Department, a local force with global reach. Then PDI got caught. Reports surfaced that they'd been running covert operations inside schools, not investigating crimes, but building political files on students and teachers. The California Supreme Court stepped in.
Russ Chamberlin (3:08): You can't send undercover cops into schools without probable cause, they ruled. The L. A. Board of Police Commissioners ordered the destruction of 1,900,000 dossiers. But Watergate had just happened.
Russ Chamberlin (3:21): America was waking up to government surveillance. The FBI had run Cointell Pro. The CIA had Operation Chaos. Cities and states started passing laws. If you're spying on someone and no crime has been committed, you must delete the file.
Russ Chamberlin (3:38): A congressman from New York wanted answers about the Kennedy assassination. He started asking questions about LAPD's investigation. A memo made its way to Gates, responding point by point. One line stood out. A key photograph taken during the investigation was kept secret by Los Angeles police who feared it might contradict official statements.
Russ Chamberlin (4:00): The memo noted, The existence of this photograph is believed to be unknown by anyone outside this department. The Senate Intelligence Committee summoned the LAPD Chief to Washington. They wanted names, everyone who was spying for the department. The Chief's response was a declaration of war. It will be a cold day in hell when I provide you with the information you've requested.
Russ Chamberlin (4:24): Back in Los Angeles, one of the PDI spies received quiet orders. Don't destroy the records. Hide them. Three years later, Daryl Gates became chief. He inherited total control of a militarized force with an elite spy network that had just learned how to operate in the shadows.
Russ Chamberlin (4:42): But the new surveillance laws created a problem. If no crime was committed, you couldn't keep the files. Gates needed a loophole. He found it in the one thing these laws couldn't regulate: private businesses. Representative Larry McDonald, chair of a right wing advocacy group, teamed up with his allies to create the Western Goals Foundation.
Russ Chamberlin (5:04): On paper, it was a think tank. In reality, investigators argued it functioned as a domestic intelligence agency operating as a private company. Allegations surfaced that the LAPD funneled its hidden PDI records to Western Goals. Over two years, they reportedly infiltrated 200 groups: city council meetings, journalists, academics, the ACLU, celebrities, LGBTQ activists, labor unions, the political left. Undercover agents sat in the city council chamber, reporting on what councilmen said, tracking their votes, building files.
Russ Chamberlin (5:43): A journalist named Dave Lindorf became a target. He described helicopters following him home at night, shining lights on his building. 144 people sued Gates, backed by the ACLU. Things got hot. But Gates struck back, winning a separate case.
Russ Chamberlin (6:01): The ruling said undercover cops could operate in schools, as long as they were targeting drug dealers. The ACLU planned to appeal. They just had to prove one thing: that Gates would abuse that power. So they focused on the PDI case. Then the city attorney representing Gates opened an unlocked file cabinet.
Russ Chamberlin (6:21): What he found made him run to the press. He famously called PDI a clandestine band of zealots who abuse every single moral and ethical precept. The judge prepared to order the release of all PDI files. But before that could happen, the news broke. The ACLU had evidence that Gates had been funneling intelligence to Western goals.
Russ Chamberlin (6:44): It was fully public now. The ACLU closed in. PDI officers started what they called the Purge, destroying tens of thousands of documents. Witnesses described them burning up two commercial shredders. Gates ran to the school board with a pitch: drug education taught by police officers.
Russ Chamberlin (7:02): Not just one class. Keep them there, embedded in the schools. The school district said no. A program cannot be developed overnight. Gates approached researchers at USC who'd developed an anti drug curriculum called Project SMART.
Russ Chamberlin (7:18): He wanted to use his cops to teach it. The researchers refused. They had serious objections to police involvement. But they agreed to share their findings. They'd tested two approaches.
Russ Chamberlin (7:29): One worked, one didn't. The approach that didn't work, they called it the effective education component, actually made kids more likely to try drugs. They'd dropped it from their program. Gates kept it in. The surveillance network he'd built was about to be destroyed for the second time.
Russ Chamberlin (7:46): The courts were closing in. The ACLU had momentum. He needed a new way in. He went back to the school board. Drug education programs taught by uniformed police officers, not guest speakers.
Russ Chamberlin (7:59): Full time assignments, cops embedded in elementary schools across the city. The school board was skeptical, but Gates had already started. In 1983, as the ACLU lawsuit reached its climax, Gates sent 10 officers into 50 elementary schools. It was a trial run. The following year, the city settled the lawsuit.
Russ Chamberlin (8:21): Gates officially launched D. R. E, drug abuse resistance education. Year one went smoothly. Year two brought an incident.
Russ Chamberlin (8:29): A cop accidentally discharged a revolver in a classroom. Year three revealed a pattern. Six kids turned in their parents for drug use in a three month period. DARE had to create a policy. Officers received instructions telling them, You're not here to gather intelligence.
Russ Chamberlin (8:46): You're here as a teacher. The training documents emphasized certain phrases repeatedly: gain their trust, build rapport. But the policy created a conflict. If a child confided something to an officer, the policy said to get another officer to handle it. The reasoning was explicit.
Russ Chamberlin (9:04): You can't lose the kid's trust. The curriculum introduced something called the DARE box. It was a decorated container that sat in the classroom. Students could drop notes inside, questions, concerns, confessions. Officers instructed students on how to use it.
Russ Chamberlin (9:22): If you want it private, make note of it. This is between you and I. Critics called it a literal confession box, a mechanism that effectively bypassed the parent child bond. As DARE expanded, more children turned their parents in. Parents compared the program to informant systems in authoritarian regimes.
Russ Chamberlin (9:42): A former officer who worked under Gates called using kids to inform on parents bottom of the barrel. The psychological damage was documented. Kids discovered years later that they were responsible for their parents' arrest. They lived with that guilt. Wikipedia's description of DARE notes that the program became known for using children as informants.
Russ Chamberlin (10:04): When asked if using kids as informants aligned with what he knew about Daryl Gates, the former officer said, Oh yeah, I have no doubt that it occurred to him that this was a possibility. To many observers, the confession box wasn't a bug in the system. It looked like a feature. But the box was just the surface. Behind DARE was a private corporation with extraordinary reach.
Russ Chamberlin (10:27): The nonprofit structure allowed Gates to do something the LAPD couldn't, take money from businesses. And once the money started flowing, so did the power. Dare America was born. Today, this structure is normal. They're called police foundations.
Russ Chamberlin (10:43): According to critics, they can operate as dark money slush funds with low transparency. Legally, these foundations can't imply that donors will influence official police actions or receive anything in return, but oversight is minimal. Dare America threw fundraiser galas, inviting wealthy donors. The dinner chair of one early gala was a luxury goods and jewelry mogul. He landed a seat on the board of directors.
Russ Chamberlin (11:09): A banker attended. He made the board. A developer showed up. Board seat. An attorney came to the event.
Russ Chamberlin (11:17): Her son suddenly joined the board. That single gala netted Dare more than $760,000 The timing was perfect for Gates. President Reagan accelerated the war on drugs. The nation united against this scourge as never before. The First Lady attended DARE fundraisers.
Russ Chamberlin (11:36): Walt Disney's daughter gave an extraordinarily generous donation and joined the board. The federal government prepared to pass a bill funding anti drug programs. DARE sent a lobbyist to Washington. That bill was amended to specifically allocate money for programs taught by uniformed law enforcement officials. DARE used government funding to create regional training centers.
Russ Chamberlin (11:58): They developed a decentralized business model: board of directors at the top, then executives, employees, training centers, and finally the officers themselves. But if they hired cops directly, those cops would no longer be police officers. So DARE helped local police departments set up their own private nonprofits. They dedicated much of the officer training to teaching cops how to raise money. Then they coached those officers to expand their programs and recruit more officers.
Russ Chamberlin (12:26): A triangle structure. It bore a striking resemblance to the business model of Herbalife, whose founder and executive vice president both joined DARE's board of directors. They donated $36,000 specifically designated for rent. With this corporate cash fueling the engine, the program became a juggernaut, expanding into 75% of American school districts. It was a massive financial success.
Russ Chamberlin (12:52): But while the money piled up, the actual curriculum went largely unscrutinized. For years, the program ran on anecdotes and good vibes. Then, the data finally caught up. A three year study commissioned by the Department of Justice found that DARE didn't work. The DOJ had approved the independent agency's approach, receiving feedback throughout the process.
Russ Chamberlin (13:13): Everything looked good, until the findings came in. The Department of Justice refused to publish the results. The researchers went to the American Journal of Public Health, one of the most respected academic journals in the field. The study received exceptionally good peer reviews, the journal prepared to publish. Then Dare called.
Russ Chamberlin (13:33): According to the journal, Dare tried to intimidate them, attempting to prevent publication. A major television network worked on a story about the program's failure. The producer said Dare worked very hard to get our story suppressed. When a USA Today reporter questioned the program's effectiveness, he received coordinated letters from classrooms across the country. All addressed the same way: Dear Dare Basher.
Russ Chamberlin (14:00): For years, Dare attacked anyone who criticized the program, but their war wasn't just against reporters. It was against anyone who tampered with the formula, even if they were trying to fix it. The organization was so protective of brand that when foreign schools tried to make the program actually effective, DARE didn't thank them. It threatened them. In The United Kingdom, schools taught the DARE curriculum, but modified it over time.
Russ Chamberlin (14:26): They still used cops, but added professionals and educators. DARE sent them a cease and desist for trademark violation. After The UK made those changes, studies found overall positive results. DARE finally admitted the truth on their website. Scientists have repeatedly shown that the program did not work.
Russ Chamberlin (14:47): They launched a new program. Attorney General Jeff Sessions attended the gathering. Over the past three years, Dare has had record breaking expansion, training thousands of new cops. The confession boxes are back in classrooms across America. If it walks like surveillance and talks like control, it probably isn't about drugs.
Russ Chamberlin (15:08): Dare gave Gates exactly what he wanted. Cops in schools, access to families, and a network the law couldn't regulate. This has been Midnight Signals. I'm Russ Chamberlain guiding you through the shadows where history meets mystery. Until next time, stay vigilant, seek the hidden, and remember in every silence there is a signal, and in every signal, a story waiting to be told.
Russ Chamberlin (15:34): Visit midnightsignals.net to continue the conversation, explore more episodes, and say hello.
