D.A.R.E. - Images by Fabian Lewkowicz

Santa Monica Police  Officers Austin Brown and Jennifer Rodriguez facilitate D.A.R.E.  (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) to fifth grade students at Grant Elementary School on Tuesday, February 8, 2011.

D.A.R.E.   is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and gives kids the skills they need to avoid involvement in drugs, gangs, and violence.

D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in 75 percent of our nation's school districts and in more than 43 countries around the world.

The D.A.R.E. program enables students to interact with police officers or sheriffs in a controlled, safe, classroom environment. This helps students and officers meet and understand each other in a friendly manner, instead of having to meet when a student commits a crime, or when officers must intervene in domestic disputes and severe family problems.