From Detention to Direction: How DARE and Gerry Wright Challenged the Juvenile System - Part I 

In the 1950s, concerns about rising juvenile crime gained national attention. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, juvenile court cases increased by 220% between 1941 and 1959. Such incidents also drew the attention of the psychologist Fredric Wertham, whose numerous articles and 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent focused on exploring the causes of juvenile crimes, arguing that popular media was fueling youth crime—a claim that resonated widely. Even today, many Americans still believe that crime comics and pop culture were strongly linked to juvenile delinquency. 

Have you ever wondered what happened to the teenagers convicted of stealing, fighting, or robbery? Did they ever return to school? Were their parents able to accept their mistakes? Did reform schools truly help them reintegrate into society? What became of a 15-year-old high school dropout who stole a car? According to The News article “DARE Salvages Poor Youth with Communal Residence,” published by Eric Levin on December 11, 1962,  “for most, the first conviction begins a series of long and embittering incarcerations in reform schools, houses of correction, and finally penitentiaries."Sadly, such penal plight only made it harder for the youth to reintegrate into society and dragged them deeper into crimes and self-contempt.

The Birth of DARE: From One Man, One House to 1,500 Kids

In 1964, Gerald “Gerry” Wright, an alumnus of the Boston University School of Theology, founded DARE (Dynamic Actions Residence Enterprises) in Jamaica Plain.  Gerry relied strongly on the support of many people, including Charlie Hauck who worked side by side with Gerry for over 35 years until his death from Mesothelioma in 2004. The first group home was staffed by 'house parents' John and Sharon Hays and Fred and Brenda Hamlet, who were referred to Gerry by South End activist and future state senator Mel King.  DARE soon established multiple community group homes in the Boston area.  It was the first and at the time the largest state-sponsored nonprofit serving troubled youth, operating with 40 programs and 1,500 kids, many of whom had been once abandoned as “hopeless” by psychiatrists and social workers. 

In a Boston Globe article by Bill Fripp, published on October 3, 1979, titled “DARE Gives Boys a Future,” Wright stated: “I started DARE on a base of compassion, understanding and discipline”. The group homes soon became DARE, and was officially sponsored by the state. To expand the program, Wright purchased a building at 36 Perkins Street in Jamaica Plain in 1964. Even now, at the age of 90, he still comes into the office with the same energy that fueled his work in 1964, and is actively involved in non-profit work. 

DARE in Action: From ‘Hopeless’ to Hope

Wright and Hays believed that recreational activity is a better therapy for their young wards. So, DARE organised recreational activities for its house residents; they have camped in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, fished for striped bass and Gloucester, held sailing excursions on the Charles River, and went to Washington D.C. for the inauguration. The local YMCA also provided daily activities, such as swimming and hiking. At the time, there were never recreational activities to be done at the Juvenile facilities. Wright and Hays believe organised group activities are excellent therapy for their young wards. 

John Hays, the director of DARE, who was also one of the first House Parents shared: “Many kids felt locked in security in the institutions…but in DARE, we want open door security.” Wright indicated that some professional psychiatrists are not the best to interact with youth who often mistrust authority figures. To minimize the gap, they try to combine professional mental health professionals with competent community members, so that kids can feel that they are on an equal basis, concluded Wright. However, there aren’t enough psychiatrists around to solve all the problems. 

In 1968, the DARE information pamphlet noted that 23 percent of resident youth stayed less than a month, while 30 percent remained for more than seven months. Most went on to have jobs and their own apartments after leaving DARE. Some residents grew attached to the staff families and were reluctant to leave the DARE community, even once they were able to live independently.

Gerry Wright: The Man Who Refused to Give Up on Boston’s ‘Hopeless’ Kids

In my interview with Wright, he explained that during his gap year before graduating from Boston University, he took a trip driving around the country, which he described as “a soul-searching” trip. President Case gave him the names of 20 different people around the country to connect with. When he returned to Boston, he began working with a Boston-based Social Service Program called ABCD, and through ABCD, he became involved with the New England Home for Little Wanderers and realised that when children aged out of the program, a lot of them ended up in institutions outside the city “like an incarceration type of family”. Through ABCD and Wright’s own interpersonal relationship, he was able to get the funds to purchase a house on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica Plain. He worked with Mel King, a former African American State Representative in Massachusetts, to recruit full-time house parents and care givers, providing group homes as an alternative institution to teenagers who didn’t have a place to live, and for those who were being prosecuted for minor offenses. Because of DARE, those teenagers were able to stay in these group homes with trained counselling staff instead of ending up in incarceration, or a dehumanising reform school. 

Before founding DARE, he was the Minister at the Methodist Church at Essex, MA. After founding DARE, he founded Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers (now Provider’s Council), co-founded Community Service Care, the Jamaica Pond Project (now Friends of Jamaica Pond), in the 1980s, he began a series of 34 trips to the then Soviet Union, founded the Worldwide Running Club for Peace, Boston Peace Marathon, Peace Child, Boston-Kiev Sister City Association Initiative, American Ukrainian Trade Council, American Russian Forestry Alliance, and adopted his Ukrainian daughter, The Caring Force, The Olmsted Way, and Wrote, directed, and acted "Frederick Law Olmsted: Passages in the Life of an Unpractical Man" to honor FLO’s legacy through 1964, and is still actively involved in non-profit and human services organizations. 

More than half a century after DARE’s founding, its story stands as a quiet but powerful reminder that a young person’s future can be changed not through punishment, but through compassion and support. Gerry Wright believed that there is no such thing as a “hopeless child,” and he built a network of homes and communities to prove it—a path rooted in trust, dignity, and second chances.

The story of DARE and Gerry Wright shows that real change often begins with one person, one house, and a refusal to give up. After our interview, Wright and his son, Matt Wright, attended a meeting about Olmsted and the Emerald Necklace park system of Boston—their story is still being written.

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