Crime Stopping..

Sometimes on the news they’ll say

This fella got sent down today.

They show a picture, black and white,

a nasty piece of work alright.

The face is chilling, darkly grim,

no wonder they arrested him.

Of course he’s a criminal, everyone cries,

you can tell that he is from the look in his eyes.

It is plain from his face that he’s broken the law

Why didn’t anyone spot it before?

The man is a dangerous weasel-faced rat.

You don’t need no Hercule Poirot to see that.

And you wonder why, with that in mind, the trial was such a long ‘un

when you only have to look at him to see that he’s a wrong ‘un.

Why bother with the evidence, the witnesses, the law?

they shouldn’t have to go through all that rubbish any more.

And as it’s plainly obvious his face so clearly fitted

why then even wait…… until a crime has been committed?

They ought to send the coppers out so people with such faces

are rounded up and put away in tightly guarded places.

We all could help the bobbies on their scrutinizing beats

by pointing out the miscreants who wander through our streets:

Just check the blank expression on this unassuming geezer -

I bet he’s chopped his girlfriend up and stored her in the freezer.

And this one with the starey eyes - it’s written in his face -

he’s plainly plotting slaughter in a crowded public place.

and don’t believe this sorry lowlife’s mitigating tale

his face says I’m a Reprobate so pack him off to jail.

You also might prognosticate from sallow, wan complexions

which sad pathetic specimens have nasty predilections.

And surely that man’s sunny joviality must hide

a dark and dirty secretive, disreputable side?

So when you see some shady type you think is maladjusted

- something in his halting gait that shows he can’t be trusted

or an ordinary businessman whose strangely muddy boots

might hint at lonely wayside graves for missing prostitutes,

become a crime stopper

and tell a passing copper.

Just one little nod

and the shifty or odd

will be taken away.

Much simpler I’d say.