Reading about 50th anniversary of Woodstock reminded me of this BBC Witness programme I made about Drop City. This was a commune set up in Colorado in 1967. It was made up of dome tents (this is what the tents looked like) and young people who took LSD and were politically against the Vietnam War. The aims of the people who joined the commune, wanted to share everything – a common bank account, food and of course – sex.
An ambitious project to inject hundreds of thousands of US dollars into sport in an attempt to persuade young people away from crime led me to Trinidad. I talked to those at risk and who are involved in Port of Spain’s gang warfare to see whether it was likely to be a success. I found a great deal of passion and positives to the idea on this Caribbean island. New facilities and money were benefiting young people but I also found that more deep rooted causes of crime – poverty and a need to belong for many hardened gang members, restricted its’ effectiveness.
After this programme was broadcast, I heard the news that Jah David, the gang member featured had been killed and Jack Warner stepped down from his post as National Security Minister, resigning amid a fraud inquiry.
One of the very first documentaries I made for the BBC World Service was nominated for a Foreign Press Award, about the ex-dog fighters who were trying to stop kids following in their footsteps, amidst the violent backdrop of everyday life.
So I get a cab to the place where the guys are training some dangerous dogs. I’m meeting the dog trainer, Jeff Jenkins who has given me some advice – to stand back and stay calm. I’ve admitted to him that I don’t like dogs at the best of times and these ones have got some serious anti social behaviour issues. One guy comes with this huge black dog barking, aggressive, pulling at the leash. I reach over with my microphone trying to ask the guy holding him back some questions – does the dog get into fights? ‘yeah when he was a puppy he got into fights and now people come up to me on the street asking me if I want to fight him’.
It’s a world where dog fighting is connected to a lifestyle involving gangs, drugs and prostitution says a youth offender who has been enrolled into animal welfare classes as a condition of his custodial sentence. When people are getting shot and killed on their front porches, where is the harm in dog fighting?
By James M Shelley – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75531139
Nina Robinson Documentaries 