Am I ugly or what?

(Concise Oxford). After singing calypso and soca for some 20 years, Shadow felt compelled in 2000 to ask the crowd: “Am I ugly or what?” Last Sunday, when our Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, expressed “the need for community policing,” the words of calypsonian Shadow suddenly invaded my mind. Why? I will tell you lower down.

After winning the road march twice and backed up by popular opinion, Shadow got worried that there was no Calypso Monarch crown for him. Until the year 2000 when he sang a calypso aimed at pricking the judges’ conscience: The calypso: “What’s Wrong With Me?” Going face-to-face with the judges, Shadow asked: “Am I ugly or what?” A question not many of us - including Lord Brigo - dare ask. (Detailed commentaries on Shadow by Debbie Jacob, Caribbean Beat, Nov/Dec, 1995; Julien Neaves, Newsday, Dec 6, 2015).

Shadow’s “Am I ugly or what” was a protest against perceived injustice.

In his 1995 album, he sang: “Everything is over the judges’ heads, By the time they understand, I go be dead, And they still won’t understand.” Why I too am now asking, “Am I ugly or what?” In that same year 2000, when crime and murders were highly- charged political issues, the then government, through its high-profile, 12-member National Quality Council, asked me to prepare a book on community policing. That is, to explain what is community policing, how to implement it, measure it, evaluate it, and quite importantly, to train police officers how to do it. The completed book was entitled The Dynamics of Community Policing: Theory, Practice and Evaluation (2000, 217 pp).

I can’t sing calypsoes like Shadow or even Lord Brigo, but I can write books. So why I too feel like asking “Am I ugly or what?” In this evidence-based 2000 book, one of the 42 actionable recommendations made for implementing a nation- wide programme of community policing stated in part: “We strongly recommend a National Community Policing Week. While the police can help to initiate and develop the civic- mindedness required, it has to be clear to the national community that they too have a direct role.” (p. 206) This punch-line added: “During this National Community Policing Week, all the nation’s institutions (eg schools, police stations, ministries, and non-government organisations (churches, community groups, private sector, etc) will show support for community policing by a series of relevant activities such as poster displays, lectures, district marches, reading materials, concerts, conferences, etc. The prisons and juvenile institutions (eg Youth Training Centre, Police Youth Clubs, St. Jude’s, St.

Michael’s, etc) can participate.” It added: “Through this embracing occasion, the nation will be showered with the concept and usefulness of community policing. This National Policing Week will also help boost the police image and public confidence.

It will also be a culmination of a two-month high-profile policing activities across the countries (eg town meetings, etc).” The other 41 recommendations spoke extensively about training, citizen-police alliances, street signs, number plates, improving the system for citizens’ complaints, incorporation of municipal police and SRPs, a Professional Community Policing Advisory Board attached to the Commissioner’s office, etc, etc...Imagine how this crime-beaten country would have benefited if these recommendations were accepted.

However, at last Sunday’s PNM conference, Prime Minister Dr Rowley said, “billions have been spent on crime over the past two decades without the expected results.” Dr Rowley intends to discuss with the Minister of National Security the merits of embarking “on a nation-wide crime prevention education programme involving all segments of the national population.” Very good, that was already said in 2000.

He added that all school pupils and others will be given an opportunity to become involved and share their views and ideas in the search for solutions to this crime menace in their local neighbourhood. Very good, but that too was clearly said in 2000.

He added: community policing will be embraced more convincingly.

We are glad, but that pathway was already outlined in 2000.

So what we are hearing in 2016 are the same things said in the 2000 book – 16 years ago.

Why? Are we all that “ugly?