Security issue: Graffiti

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Security issue: Graffiti

Grafitti is the defacement of property by means of writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed on a surface in a public place without the consent of the owner or person having custody or control.

Description

Grafitti on a storefront in New York

Motives for grafitti are various and the type of grafitti varies with the motives. A classification of types of grafitti with the associated features is presented in http://www.popcenter.org/problems/graffiti/. This classification is presented in the table below.

Types of Graffiti and Associated Motives
Type of Graffiti Features Motives
Gang[1] Gang name or symbol, including hand signs Gang member name(s) or nickname(s), or sometimes a roll-call listing of members Numbers[2] Distinctive, stylized alphabets[3] Key visible locations Enemy names and symbols, or allies' names Mark turf
Threaten violence
Boast of achievements
Honor the slain
Insult/taunt other gangs
Common Tagger[4] High-volume, accessible locations High-visibility, hard-to-reach locations May be stylized but simple name or nickname tag or symbols[5] Tenacious (keep retagging) Notoriety or prestige
Defiance of authority
Artistic Tagger Colorful and complex pictures known as masterpieces or pieces Artistic Prestige or recognition
Conventional Graffiti: Spontaneous Sporadic episodes or isolated incidents Play Rite of passage
Excitement Impulsive
Conventional Graffiti: Malicious or Vindictive Sporadic, isolated or systematic incidents Anger
Boredom
Resentment
Failure
Despair
Ideological Offensive content or symbols Racial, ethnic or religious slurs Specific targets, such as synagogues Highly legible Slogans Anger
Hate
Political
Hostility
Defiance

Attributing circumstances

  • Other grafitti or deterioration
  • Vulnerable objects
    • transportation systems
    • highly visible surfaces (also mobile targets, such as buses or trains!)
    • blank surfaces
    • light coloured surface
    • large and plain surfaces
    • reachable surfaces[6]
  • Absence of apparent ownership
  • Poor lighting
  • Little surveillance/oversight
  • Close to gang activity
  • Male youth

Impacts

  • Social
  • Financial

Social impacts

Known social impacts of "graffitism" include changing citzens perception of (in)security and fear of crime. This usually happens in a way that has an effect on the gap between "felt" and "factual" secuirty, since individuals tend to make - correct or incorret - reasoning on societal security as a whole based on immediate environmentla clues. This is known as the "broken glass phenomenon".

Economic impact

Graffiti (as a form of vandalism) leads to considerable costs in both a direct (primary) and a indirect (secondary) way[7]. Direct costs of graffiti come in the form of:

  • Preventive costs in anticipation of graffiti as a form of vandalism (e.g. security measures, insurance);
  • Material and immaterial costs as a consequence of graffiti (e.g. physical damage, clean up costs, repairments, medical costs, mental harm); and
  • Responsive costs to graffiti (e.g. the costs of detection and prevention, persecution, support trial, etc.).

In general, the (direct) costs to repair, replace, and clean up property defaced by graffiti are paid for by the communities, private property owners, small business and public agencies[8].

Moreover, the presence of graffiti can trigger secondary economic impacts. Several studies found that criminal offences such as vandalism and graffiti have a significant negative impact on real estate prices [9]. Moreover, graffiti vandalism can have a negative impact on local businesses (as consumers decide to shop in other places), and can lead to the potential loss of funding for community organisation, youth groups and school programs[10].

Measures

  • Rapid cleaning
  • Anti-grafitti coating
  • Surveillance/reaction force
  • Non flat, dark or colourful surfaces
  • Controlling access to vulnerable surfaces
  • Electronic detection

Footnotes and references

  1. Copycat graffiti looks like gang graffiti, and may be the work of gang wanna-bes or youths seeking excitement.
  2. Offenders commonly use numbers as code in gang graffiti. A number may represent the corresponding position in the alphabet (e.g., 13 = M, for the Mexican Mafia), or represent a penal or police radio code.
  3. Stylized alphabets include bubble letters, block letters, backwards letters, and Old English script.
  4. Tagbangers, a derivative of tagging crews and gangs, are characterized by competition with other crews. Thus crossedout tags are features of their graffiti.
  5. The single-line writing of a name is usually known as a tag, while slightly more complex tags, including those with two colors or bubble letters, are known as throw-ups.
  6. although hard-to-reach surfaces, such as motorway cross-overs might be regarded as attractive challenges
  7. Primary economic impact (or direct effects) are generally defined as the initial, immediate economic output generated by a specific cause (in this case a criminal offence). Secondary economic impact (or indirect effects) are generated each time a subsequent transaction is made, for example, the impact of crime on the real estate value in the neighborhood.
  8. Graffiti Hurts Australia (2008). http://www.graffitihurts.com.au/cost.php
  9. See Gibbons, S. (2004). The costs of urban property crime. The Economic Journal, 114 (499). ISSN 0013-0133.
  10. See Graffiti Hurts Australia (2008). http://www.graffitihurts.com.au/cost.php

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