Graffiti vs. Street Crime
By Christy Mihalenko I 11/03/12
What do you think of when you hear the word graffiti? Do dank alleyways, and unkempt and impoverished areas ridden with gang violence come to mind? If so, you are one of many other Americans who think exactly the same. However, is of graffiti directly linked to street crime?
Starting in 2007 Noah Fritz, a criminology professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and a group of twenty-five students spent a year studying and mapping graffiti in 180 census blocks throughout the city of Denver, CO, where they documented over 1,000 etchings, drawings, and murals. Within the study they hoped to “…see if there is any correlation between graffiti and street crime, and whether simply painting over the marks is an effective way to counter it” (A. Sherry The Denver Post). Fritz recognized that within Denver there are a variety of genres when it comes to graffiti within the city ranging from gang communication to beautiful murals on garage exteriors. He also acknowledged that the graffiti in Denver, like that of other places across the nation, “…is largely misunderstood and that painting over it sometimes dares the taggers into a cat-and-mouse game” (A. Sherry The Denver Post). According to Joe Austin, author of Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City, this cat-and-mouse game developed as a reaction to the authorities “war on Graffiti” and the struggle over territory between the police and graffiti writers. Austin states that, “…many writers embraced the resulting danger with an enthusiasm that young people often demonstrate when their activities are policed…[and] being able to play this game successfully became one of their necessary survival skills” (69).
Mike Allard, a local manager of the tobacco shop Headed West in Denver, has witnessed this cat-and-mouse game firsthand. He had been struggling with the "gangbangers in Englewood" for months. The sides of his store were continually tagged by graffiti writers and if he didn’t paint or wash over the graffiti within three days of its appearance he would be fined by the city. Since the tagging of his store was a reoccurring problem, Allard decided to hire some former graffiti artists to draw murals on both sides of his business. Other graffiti writers rarely ever tag over someone else’s work for it is a sign of disrespect. This being the case, the store hasn't been tagged since the murals went up (A. Sherry The Denver Post). The incidents that plagued Allard’s store were never linked to gang activity or street crime. Yet, that does not remove the psychological effect of the constant presence of graffiti in the area that leaves the impression “…that no one cares about the state of the community” (“torontopolice.on.ca”). Graffiti in an area can cause people to panic and shy away from the neighborhoods where it is located. According to the Toronto Police Service the existence of graffiti can lead to “higher taxes for clean-up, lower property values, heightened fear of crime, and cancellation or reduction of education and recreation programs”.
Residents who live mere blocks away from the capital of Harrisburg, PA have recently aroused these concerns, and property owners have been “fearing the worst” but “…Harrisburg police said they have no reason to believe the recent vandalism is the work of a gang” even though there has been gang activity in the past (Veronikis The Patriot-News). According to The Patriot-News, the police have stated, “We have nothing to substantiate that it is gang-related. It’s probably juveniles tagging buildings…there are a variety of things you look for, but right now, it’s not pointing to gangs. We have our downtown officers specifically vigilant in that area.” Residents have been clear in their desires to have the graffiti removed as quickly as possible however, some fear has arisen that removing the graffiti may invite trouble from the writer community.
Harrisburg is starting the “war on Graffiti”, a war that New York City battled in the 1970s. Most of the NYC’s issues laid beneath its asphalt streets, in the tunnels of the subway systems. Former president of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), David Gunn, took control of the situation in 1984 and implemented The Clean Car Program. According to Richard Schneider and Ted Kitchen, Authors of Planning for Crime Prevention: A Transatlantic Perspective, “anyone who used the system at that time can attest, the state of repair of the rail infrastructure was unreliable, the stations were dirty and considered especially dangerous, and the subway cars were almost completely covered, inside and out, with graffiti. Much of this disarray was the result of New York's financial difficulties of the 1970s” (Schneider and Kitchen 140).
To solve the City’s subterrainian graffiti investation the act of tagging had to be denied from graffiti writers .“Gunn removed the incentive to tag trains by instituting a policy of thoroughly cleaning subway cars and never allowing them to re-enter service again with any form of graffiti on them at all. Cars were quickly cleaned (within two hours) or, if that was not feasible, they were taken out of service entirely. This approach illustrates a classic situational crime prevention technique in that it destroyed the reward inherent in the graffitists' acts: their work would no longer be put on public view” (Schneider and Kitchen 140). The program was a huge success and five years after its beginning the last tagged car had been removed from the system. Today the trains are graffiti free in terms of paint, however there are still etchings on the windows. The situation has been controlled, yet there are still questions pertaining to “…the linkage between the clean-up programme and purported (or hoped for) reductions in more serious crimes… [since] the New York City Transit Police data for the period following the clean-up show no decreases in crime” (Schneider and Kitchen 140).
Even with all the efforts to remove graffiti from urban landscapes as a means to decrease street crime, it has rarely aided in crime reduction. To what has been observed, most graffiti has been recorded as non-gang related, thus reducing it does not reduce gang activity. None the less, non-gang related graffiti impacts the atmosphere of neighborhoods, and communities are feeling its effects. It decreases housing prices because of the permanent negative connotations associated with graffiti (“torontopolice.on.ca”). There is no concrete evidence to suggest street crime has fallen because of the removal of graffiti. Its removal makes areas look cleaner, thus people feel safer for they are not surrounded by the negative connotations that come with graffiti. Psychologically, citizens are assuaged when the area they inhabit is unmarked by graffiti writers. The crime of graffiti itself can be drastically reduced by removing the graffiti in a timely manner, restricting access to wall be planting thorny bushes, and increasing lighting in vulnerable areas” (“torontopolice.on.ca”). However, as long as there in an economic imbalance within a community street crimes will be an ordinary occurrence.
Works Cited:
Austin, Joe. Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Print. "Graffiti crime and prevention." torontopolice.on.ca. Toronto Police Service, n.d. Web. 25 Oct 2012.
Schneider, Richard, and Ted Kitchen. Planning for Crime Prevention: A Transatlantic Perspective. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Sherry, Allison. "New study on graffiti, crime correlation: A Metro prof and his students aim to discover whether graffiti and crime correlate." Denver Post [Denver] 2007-2008, n. pag. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.
Veronikis, Eric. "Harrisburg property owners express concern about graffiti symbols appearing downtown ." Patriot-News [Harrisburg] 02 12 2012, n. pag. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.
Starting in 2007 Noah Fritz, a criminology professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and a group of twenty-five students spent a year studying and mapping graffiti in 180 census blocks throughout the city of Denver, CO, where they documented over 1,000 etchings, drawings, and murals. Within the study they hoped to “…see if there is any correlation between graffiti and street crime, and whether simply painting over the marks is an effective way to counter it” (A. Sherry The Denver Post). Fritz recognized that within Denver there are a variety of genres when it comes to graffiti within the city ranging from gang communication to beautiful murals on garage exteriors. He also acknowledged that the graffiti in Denver, like that of other places across the nation, “…is largely misunderstood and that painting over it sometimes dares the taggers into a cat-and-mouse game” (A. Sherry The Denver Post). According to Joe Austin, author of Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City, this cat-and-mouse game developed as a reaction to the authorities “war on Graffiti” and the struggle over territory between the police and graffiti writers. Austin states that, “…many writers embraced the resulting danger with an enthusiasm that young people often demonstrate when their activities are policed…[and] being able to play this game successfully became one of their necessary survival skills” (69).
Mike Allard, a local manager of the tobacco shop Headed West in Denver, has witnessed this cat-and-mouse game firsthand. He had been struggling with the "gangbangers in Englewood" for months. The sides of his store were continually tagged by graffiti writers and if he didn’t paint or wash over the graffiti within three days of its appearance he would be fined by the city. Since the tagging of his store was a reoccurring problem, Allard decided to hire some former graffiti artists to draw murals on both sides of his business. Other graffiti writers rarely ever tag over someone else’s work for it is a sign of disrespect. This being the case, the store hasn't been tagged since the murals went up (A. Sherry The Denver Post). The incidents that plagued Allard’s store were never linked to gang activity or street crime. Yet, that does not remove the psychological effect of the constant presence of graffiti in the area that leaves the impression “…that no one cares about the state of the community” (“torontopolice.on.ca”). Graffiti in an area can cause people to panic and shy away from the neighborhoods where it is located. According to the Toronto Police Service the existence of graffiti can lead to “higher taxes for clean-up, lower property values, heightened fear of crime, and cancellation or reduction of education and recreation programs”.
Residents who live mere blocks away from the capital of Harrisburg, PA have recently aroused these concerns, and property owners have been “fearing the worst” but “…Harrisburg police said they have no reason to believe the recent vandalism is the work of a gang” even though there has been gang activity in the past (Veronikis The Patriot-News). According to The Patriot-News, the police have stated, “We have nothing to substantiate that it is gang-related. It’s probably juveniles tagging buildings…there are a variety of things you look for, but right now, it’s not pointing to gangs. We have our downtown officers specifically vigilant in that area.” Residents have been clear in their desires to have the graffiti removed as quickly as possible however, some fear has arisen that removing the graffiti may invite trouble from the writer community.
Harrisburg is starting the “war on Graffiti”, a war that New York City battled in the 1970s. Most of the NYC’s issues laid beneath its asphalt streets, in the tunnels of the subway systems. Former president of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), David Gunn, took control of the situation in 1984 and implemented The Clean Car Program. According to Richard Schneider and Ted Kitchen, Authors of Planning for Crime Prevention: A Transatlantic Perspective, “anyone who used the system at that time can attest, the state of repair of the rail infrastructure was unreliable, the stations were dirty and considered especially dangerous, and the subway cars were almost completely covered, inside and out, with graffiti. Much of this disarray was the result of New York's financial difficulties of the 1970s” (Schneider and Kitchen 140).
To solve the City’s subterrainian graffiti investation the act of tagging had to be denied from graffiti writers .“Gunn removed the incentive to tag trains by instituting a policy of thoroughly cleaning subway cars and never allowing them to re-enter service again with any form of graffiti on them at all. Cars were quickly cleaned (within two hours) or, if that was not feasible, they were taken out of service entirely. This approach illustrates a classic situational crime prevention technique in that it destroyed the reward inherent in the graffitists' acts: their work would no longer be put on public view” (Schneider and Kitchen 140). The program was a huge success and five years after its beginning the last tagged car had been removed from the system. Today the trains are graffiti free in terms of paint, however there are still etchings on the windows. The situation has been controlled, yet there are still questions pertaining to “…the linkage between the clean-up programme and purported (or hoped for) reductions in more serious crimes… [since] the New York City Transit Police data for the period following the clean-up show no decreases in crime” (Schneider and Kitchen 140).
Even with all the efforts to remove graffiti from urban landscapes as a means to decrease street crime, it has rarely aided in crime reduction. To what has been observed, most graffiti has been recorded as non-gang related, thus reducing it does not reduce gang activity. None the less, non-gang related graffiti impacts the atmosphere of neighborhoods, and communities are feeling its effects. It decreases housing prices because of the permanent negative connotations associated with graffiti (“torontopolice.on.ca”). There is no concrete evidence to suggest street crime has fallen because of the removal of graffiti. Its removal makes areas look cleaner, thus people feel safer for they are not surrounded by the negative connotations that come with graffiti. Psychologically, citizens are assuaged when the area they inhabit is unmarked by graffiti writers. The crime of graffiti itself can be drastically reduced by removing the graffiti in a timely manner, restricting access to wall be planting thorny bushes, and increasing lighting in vulnerable areas” (“torontopolice.on.ca”). However, as long as there in an economic imbalance within a community street crimes will be an ordinary occurrence.
Works Cited:
Austin, Joe. Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Print. "Graffiti crime and prevention." torontopolice.on.ca. Toronto Police Service, n.d. Web. 25 Oct 2012.
Schneider, Richard, and Ted Kitchen. Planning for Crime Prevention: A Transatlantic Perspective. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Sherry, Allison. "New study on graffiti, crime correlation: A Metro prof and his students aim to discover whether graffiti and crime correlate." Denver Post [Denver] 2007-2008, n. pag. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.
Veronikis, Eric. "Harrisburg property owners express concern about graffiti symbols appearing downtown ." Patriot-News [Harrisburg] 02 12 2012, n. pag. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.