About Graffiti Tagging

Graffiti is a crime that telegraphs gang activity often related to turf wars and illegal drugs. Graffiti is an admonisher of a gang presence which is largely about achieving notoriety, fame, territorial demarcation and recognition. There are 3 main forms of graffiti: hip hop graffiti, political graffiti and stenciling. Graffiti are those more typically huge elaborate writings or drawings some would describe as art.

The most predominate form of graffiti is hip hop which includes tagging, throw ups, or pieces. At the center of graffiti tagging is comparing, competition and challenge between rivals, which forms the pecking order of the individuals involved. Technically, taggers are not graffiti writers, nor are they artists.

Tagging is simply going around various places in neighborhoods and writing cunning "tag name" on just about anything taggers can think up. To me, graffiti tagging is evidence of little minds written in large lettering.

Battling graffiti tagging requires action in 3 ways: anti-graffiti awareness, clean-up and law enforcement. Educating the community in terms of what it symbolisms is one of the most effective ways of wiping out graffiti tagging. Enforcement actions seem to range from working with the taggers to provide designated venues (other than neighborhood walls and property) to express themselves to stiff fines and imprisonment.

I recently a press release from the Office of the Governor that says , in part, that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is punishing graffiti offenders by requiring them to perform "a minimum of 24 hours of community service, when available, if they have reached a civil compromise with the victim". The new law also "requires the court to order offenders paroled for a graffiti violation to clean up, repair or replace the damaged property. Defendants would also be required keep the damaged property or another specified property in the community free of graffiti for up to one year."

And in Texas the risk is even greater whereby if a property owner catches a tagger after sunset the property owner has the right to actually shoot the tagger to stop them.

The faster you remove the graffiti, the faster the tagging problem can be diminished as this may prevent the defacement from becoming a status symbol among the gangs and taggers. And with community support, police departments can become much more effective and successful in addressing graffiti-tagging defacement complaints. The most common methods of removing the graffiti include simply over-painting it, using chemical based cleaners, or sandblasting and water-blasting.

Hopefully, this article can provide some level of understanding of just how to address the issue of graffiti in our neighborhoods.