Seemingly overnight, just like the act itself, graffiti and getting rid of it is hot.
In Shoreline, officials say they’ve had more reports of graffiti in this past year than in the previous six, combined.
In Edmonds, the city council is considering making the ubiquitous Sharpie felt-tipped pen a behind-the-counter kind of sales item. Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon says he’s made removing graffiti a priority and wants a $100 a day fine for property owners who fail to clean up or cover up graffiti that has been visited upon them.
Paying attention to graffiti, its sources and attendant crimes, is a good thing. Graffiti is expensive, accounting for millions of dollars in property damage in the U.S.
According to studies, most graffiti is done by teenage boys living in the suburbs. Serious enough, given the magnitude of the damage, but another category relates to gangs actively marking their criminal territories. Those markings are glimpses into a far deeper community crime problem.
No upstanding business or property owner is happy about being tagged. However, that doesn’t mean that every recipient of a tagging has the financial strength to right this wrong.
A small business owner who comes to work to find a back wall vandalized with caricatures and bubble letters is the victim at that point, not the problem.
Of course, there are ordinances and codes in all jurisdictions designed to remind and compel property owners to maintain certain standards. Those rules generally take effect when one person’s neglect becomes another person’s property devaluation or safety issue.
Graffiti is a problem, one that government can help address through enforcement and punishment of the vandals who commit this crime. Government, however, must remember that the recipients of graffiti are victims and assistance programs, not punishments that can potentially turn victims into criminals themselves, are also part of the answer.
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