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Archive for the ‘Anti-Graffiti’ Category

(Washington Post 021809) – Two Charles County men have been charged in connection with a spate of racist graffiti that has appeared in recent weeks, authorities said.

Click the by line to read the entire article.

TAGS 2009: The Anti-Graffiti Symposium is being hosted in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on October 21 & 22, 2009 at the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort.

The purpose of this 2 day symposium is to connect, educate and inspire law enforcement, community and business in the fight against graffiti in our neighborhoods. This symposium provides an international networking forum where participants can share stories, ideas and techniques in graffiti prevention, program development, prosecution and removal.

The guest speaker list is a who’s who of the world-wide anti-graffiti movement. Randy Campbell of the NoGraf Network is this year’s keynote speaker. You will also have a chance to meet police, city, county and state personnel as well as citizens from some of the most active anti-graffiti locations in the world. The schedule of events is loaded with information.

Visit the TAGS 2009 website for more information. Consider supporting this event as a sponsor if you are an anti-graffiti product vendor.

North Carolina State University Professor Deborah Lamm Weisel at the Center for Problem Oriented Policing writes, “Historically, much conventional graffiti has represented a youthful “rite of passage” — part of a phase of experimental behavior. Such graffiti is usually spontaneous and not malicious in nature; indeed, spontaneous graffiti has often been characterized as play, adventure or exuberance. Spontaneous graffiti may reflect local traditions and appear on “fair targets” such as abandoned buildings or schools. Communities have often tolerated such graffiti.”

This is nonsense. When a person is old enough to understand that damaging the property of another is wrong the motive is malicious. The behavior is therefore malicious. Every community I have lived in has reviled graffiti. It has never been tolerated as play or a right of passage.

While I applaud the fact that a university actually has a professor speaking out against graffiti as a crime I still have to challenge a point of view that simply does not make sense. There is nothing playful about a kid that vandalizes the property of another. There is nothing exuberant about the behavior that diminishes the effect of the vandalism on the victim. One cannot assume after everything that has been learned about this crime that a perpetrator can be explained away in this fashion. It is just nuts!

When someone purchases or steals a can of spray paint to damage the property of another it is not a spontaneous crime. What is the likelihood of a graffiti vandal spontaneously finding a can of spray paint to damage someone esle’s property? I think it an unlikely event.

While I enjoyed reading the professor’s web page I had to disagree wither assumption in this respect. I have NEVER heard of graffiti characterized as spontaneous. When she says, “often been characterized as play, adventure or exuberance,” I say prove it. Show me. No way you can say this and support the claim.

And what in the name of all we hold dear is a fair target for a graffiti vandal?

Interesting article $100,000 for graffiti abatement seems like a drop in the bucket.

[Editor: Actually having to spend anything on abatement is a terrible waste if you think about it. It sure would be nice if all this money could do something else, but we do have to clean our communities of vandalism. This article from Digg is actually about a muralist in LA whose art was damaged by vandals.]

read more | digg story

Calvert County has experienced graffiti vandalism this year. How about St. Mary’s and Charles Counties? Perhaps you have seen graffiti in your neighborhoods? What are you doing to report the graffiti and how are you being received by law enforcement and county government? Is the graffiti being removed in a timely fashion?

It is very important to report new occurrences of graffiti vandalism and that you insist the vandalism be abated. If your county does not have a graffiti ordinance that requires private property owners to abate graffiti vandalism on their property ask your elected representatives to write and enact one.

Encourage your local law enforcement agency to join the NoGraf Network at NoGraffiti.com.

When graffiti got to be a problem for Mark Schachner. a dell owner in Brooklyn, N.Y., his solution was not to report it, Out to encourage it. He painted his boarded fence white and then posted signs inviting local graffiti artists to come and paint one panel each.

[Editor: A recent example of a business owner's attempt to "get along" with the graffiti vandals in his neighborhood. His free wall didn't work.]

read more | digg story

In its efforts to revitalize neighborhoods, West Valley City created the Community Preservation Department in February. A code-enforcement officer dedicated to cleaning up graffiti was hired that month. In July, the enforcement staff was doubled.

[A Utah city does what it needed to do to eradicate graffiti.]

read more | digg story

Gray Ghost of New Orleans (anti-graffiti artist responsible for ruining some Banksy art) finally busted for painting over the wrong mural. (w/ video)

[Editor comment: Every city and county needs a graffiti ordinance that REQUIRES private property owners to abate graffiti. Citizens working with local anti-graffiti programs should NEVER go on to private property to abate graffiti unless they are abating graffiti under an ordinance or they have permission from the property owner. If the property owner in this case later accepted the vandalism because the picture was pretty and there is no ordinance the graffiti fighter really has no standing. This is a scenario that should not happen in a community with an ordinance and a well designed graffiti removal program.This is a very sad story because some members of this community is still in denial.]

read more | digg story

The graffiti subculture derives great satisfaction having attention paid to their vandalism. It is part of the thrill or high to have the establishment acknowledge the damage using photographs in a local newspaper.

In my opinion, A newspaper should write about the vandalism but should mask the vandalism in photographs so that the graffiti can not be easily seen. It is enough to write about the damage and show in general the areas affected. The photo department at the newspaper should fuzz out or blur the graffiti so the taggers cannot identify the tag or piece. Likewise, television news should blur the damage so the tag or piece cannot be identified. We see news agencies mask the identity of individuals to protect identity and we should also see news agencies from allowing their service to become part of the drug that feeds the graffiti problem.

The recently reported vandalism in Prince George’s County remind us that graffiti also has a hate-crime side to it. Cowards use graffiti to frighten others into believing their way – or so they think. Whenever this crime is directed at one group based on politics, religion, or any other social, sexual, physical, or personal attribute of a victim it is a hate crime.

The sign went up Sunday evening, bold black letters against the stark white background of the marquee at the Colony South Hotel & Conference Center in Clinton: “Country First. McCain/Palin.” By daybreak, pandemonium had broken loose all across heavily Democratic Prince George’s County. Many local supporters of Democrat Barack Obama, jolted…

read more | digg story

palmettoscoop.com: What happens when your candidate is endorsed by Hamas …The wave of vandalism targeting supporters of presidential candidate John McCain isn’t just limited to South Carolina, as we experienced last weekend when thugs sprayed graffiti all over the York County GOP headquarters, nor is it limited to Republicans.

read more | digg story

Vandals struck the garages and homes of at least six Minnesota members of Congress Tuesday night, spray painting angry graffiti including a Biblical reference to “Psalm 2.” U.S. Sen Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman, U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison, John Kline, Michele Bachmann and Jim Ramstad. Klobuchar and Ellison are Democrats; the rest are Republicans.

read more | digg story

Wall built so youths can “practice” graffiti is vandalized by graffiti before it opens

read more | digg story

What has changed in the thirteen years since DougWeb got involved in the graffiti problem? Take a moment to leave a comment to this article to tell us. I can say from attending the NoGraf conference in Santa Rosa that I think police agencies are far more sophisticated and interested in the issue than they used to be. I can also say that this interest is a year-to-year thing and probably varies in sophistication from place to place based on the interest of police management but in general things seem to be better than they were. Or is it really better where you live? Is graffiti, public property damage, still a problem and how does it make you feel as a resident or property owner?

It has been thirteen years since the first anti-graffiti site on the Internet challenged the university sites promoting public property vandalism. What has really changed from the graffiti victim’s point of view since 1995? I used to get lots of email from victims that found the Anti-Graffiti Web Page in 1995. Are we still as concerned as we were then? Does your community take graffiti vandalism seriously? Do they still take it seriously in Pleasant Hill, California where this all got started?

Leave a comment. Tell us.

Over the years I came to believe that the five stages of grief apply not only to someone that has lost a loved one or cherished friend but also to the crime victim. This includes graffiti victims.  The five stages of what to expect after a loss are manifested in different ways perhaps but are essentially the same from tragedy to tragedy.  The major difference in the application of the five stages is in the scale. Not just one person or a family is grief stricken but an entire community is affected by graffiti vandalism. This article is my opinion on how the five stages of grief apply to the victims of graffiti vandalism and how I worked through all five stages.

The five steps are:

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Denial

Not in my neighborhood! Not in my city! This could not be as a big a problem as it looks. This will all get cleaned up and go away. That’s how I felt. But that was not reality. The vandalism remained on most private property, the various jurisdictions were slow to respond or never did. Rather quickly the business owners and residents of the community were way past this stage.

Most amazingly a few jurisdictions decided in public meetings that despite the visual evidence they did not have a graffiti problem! As I recall it took considerable convincing at local political levels to even get an acknowledgment  of the obvious.  Politicians may deny graffiti vandalism is an issue because they have no idea how to deal with it and do not want to cope with the obvious economic cost.

Anger

You’re darned right I was mad! I owned a home for almost 13 years in a victim community. What was a great place to live was suddenly surrounded by vandalism.  As I recall I was acutely sensitive angered by each and every tag or throw up.  I knew where all the vandalism was.

What I did after proceeding through the rest of the steps was to channel my anger into a productive effort directed at local abatement. Every anti-graffiti activist I have met has done the same thing. Anger became positive action whether that was just to pick up the telephone and report it to the police, go to a council meeting,  or join an abatement program to paint out or clean the vandalism.

Bargaining

There is an unfortunate twist to the graffiti vandalism bargaining stage that is way out-of-scale with other crimes.  Normally, bargaining as defined in the five steps is done with God, or perhaps one person, or perhaps an employer. After the anger has set in one tries to make deals that might assuage the anger or the feeling of, “Why me!” Anything to make the hurt go away.

The graffiti-vandalism subculture takes advantage of the bargaining step socially and politically.  But as all the begging and wishing and wailing and praying doesn’t bring back the dead, neither does the twisted truly anti-social rhetoric of the graffiti subculture.

The graffiti vandal wants to bargain with you so that you will in the end make yjeir sub-culture a positive part of your acceptance in step 5.  The vandal knows full well that if he can get your resignation you will leave him or her alone. But as the various five-step definitions will tell you resignation is not acceptance.

At first it seems reasonable to buy into the bargaining.  When you do you are asking for nothing but continued grief.

Some on the political left actually make the bargaining part of their ideology claiming that the vandals are simply oppressed poor with no positive way to express themselves. They ignore the fact that vandals in this criminal sub culture are from all economic and age groups.

Vandals will bargain for safe walls or free walls. They will insist that graffiti is art and try to get you to think likewise.

To get past this step you need to resign yourself to some know facts:

1. Safe walls do not work. Anywhere you have a so-called safe or free wall you will have vandalism spread outweard from the safe wall for thousands of feet if not miles.

2. The difference between graffiti and art is permission.

Depression

The scale of a community-wide, nation-wide, or world-wide depression is demonstrated by the Great Depression of the 1930′s and more recently to the failure of our politicians and regulators to prevent the recent economic catastrophe of 2008. The scurrilous reprehensible and over-powering greed of others (which I now liken to the thrill a vandal gets from graffiti) led to massive worry and feelings of hopelessness. Not even the prospect of a new president in 2008 gives us much hope because we are all sick and tired of the same foolish people that remain in charge of our destiny.

Depression is hopelessness. Unrestrained and unabated vandalism leads to widespread fear and hopelessness in a community causing property values to suffer and people’s interest in the community to decline.

Communities without anti-graffiti activists and political or responsible social leaders that care cannot get past this stage.  Moving out of the depression takes time but it is done with graffiti ordinances, law enforcement, graffiti abatement, and zero tolerance attitudes. There is no bargaining with vandals.

Acceptance

You have to accept the loss but you do not have to bear it quietly. You accept the fact that a vandal has defaced your community but you report the vandalism to law enforcement and abate it – quickly. Your anger is channeled into positive action. You maintain the fondness for your home and your community while not permitting a lawless vandal with a spray paint can or etching tool to take it all away from you.  Depression is not part of your plan! Acceptance has to be community wide and it cannot stop at one border and resume at another. Acceptance spreads outward from responsible citizens and active governments concerned for the welfare of a community. As long as the problem persists there are anti-graffiti activists prepared to fight back.

My own acceptance was channeled into seeing that my city at the time had a graffiti ordinance, that it was applied, that we reported the graffiti to the police, that we abated the graffiti.  I have see it work this way everywhere graffiti is a problem. To combat the insidious effects of random acts of vandalism by the graffiti sub culture you have to accept the fact they are there and challenge and erase their acts of vandalism.

Five Stages of Grief Link at eSSORTMENT.

These companies, persons, and websites support NoGraffiti.com the NoGraf Network

“The difference between graffiti and art is permission.”

Join us if graffiti vandalism is a problem in your community.

Visualpollution

Navworld

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Michellefryer

Graffiti Safe Wipes

Tripwire Covert Camers

Tripwiresystems

Nograffiti.org
Graffiti Trade
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GRIP
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Rainguard
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Chpforums.com
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Smartykidstech

Randycampbell.net
Bergstromaircraft.com Cufftech.com

Santa Rosa, CA 073108 – I was skeptical. When someone claims to invent a better mousetrap I’m skeptical. So when Matt Thomas from BK Enterprises pitched me on their new line of graffiti removal products I was skeptical. Then I read the various testimonials, heard about the success of the product over the last eighteen months and learned more about BK Enterprises. I sure looks like Matt’s company has indeed invented a great graffiti cleaning product – five new products actually. They call it, “A New Generation in Graffiti Removal.”

BK manufactures graffiti cleaning products for specific types of cleaning. There is ELITE Graffiti Remover for brick, concrete and stone.  Until now sand blasting or painting (neither are terrific options for various reasons) were the only options available to most jurisdictions responsible for cleaning up graffiti vandalism. Next are Metal Safe and Sign Safe Graffiti Removers for indoor or outdoor metal signs. There is MARKER Graffiti Remover designed to remove marker graffiti on painted doors, walls, counter tops, and mail boxes. Lastly is their General Purpose product. Needless to say I was impressed how far graffiti abatement cleaning technology has come.

Cities and counties needing to look again at their graffiti abatement options should contact BK Enterprises and discuss these new products. Read their testimonials and decide for yourself. I suspect BK might even want to look at designing a better mousetrap. They just might be the company to do it. Visit BK at http://www.mybke.com.

Santa Rosa, CA 073108 – Graffiti prevention occurs through early intervention, education, and empowerment. Thankfully Ann Cooney and her illustrator Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli are masters at prevention through education. Through the Anti-Graffiti Resource Kit they call Painted Problems, teachers use beautifully illustrated lesson plans and brilliantly designed art projects for young students. Teachers give students unique project completion certificates after completing their art projects. Education was big a theme at this conference. The folks from Painted Problems have an educational anti-graffiti product directed at students in the 8-10 age group that clearly gets the anti-graffiti message across. Anne’s product stands out as a very artistic and meaningful approach to what can later become a complicated behavioral problem.

Through art projects, students learn that graffiti is not a victimless crime. They learn how to report graffiti to the authorities and involve themselves in the community. The illustrated characters are attractively enjoyable reading. As Anne says, “Every community can relate to the graffiti victims in Painted Problems. Everyone can work together to graffiti proof their community.”

Santa Rosa, CA 073108- Graffiti Removal, Inc. demonstrated their glass repair product Vandal Shield at the NorCal Graffiti Conference . Vandal Shield developed and patented a product that can repair expensive windows and glass surfaces negating the need to spend thousands in some cases to replace etched or scratched glass. Conference attendees were very impressed by this genuinely unique abatement technology.

Using Vanda Shield is easy. The surfaces are thoroughly cleaned. Then surfaces are sanded with special glass sanding disks. A sheet of the Vanda Shield product is evenly applied to the sanded area with a water-based solution. Using a squeegee the final bond of the Vandal Shield product is assured. Once complete the glass is repaired, amazingly clear, and complete glass replacement was not required.

You can read about Vandal Shield at http://www.vandalshield.com. You can see a demo of the product in action at http://www.youtube.com/vandalshield.

You can also reach the Vandal Shiled folks at 800-543-4500.

Santa Rosa, CA 073108 – At the NorCal Graffiti Conference a company called TRIPWIRE demonstrated the TRIPWIRE Rapid Apprehension System. TRIPWIRE specializes in remote, instant alert systems to apprehend the perpetrators of vandalism. As I roamed the vendor display rooms I found the TRIPWIRE product to be very exciting.

The TRIPWIRE system employees hidden sensors that trigger hidden cameras. Once pictures are taken the pictures are routed by cellular telephone direct to Blackberry style cellular telephones. Once received the person viewing the cellular picture can react to the trespass or the vandalism. What is so unique about the system is its portability.

Perhaps even more exciting is the subscription-based database product that TRIPWIRE sells that allows a jurisdiction to catalog, record, track, and search graffiti vandalism events. TRIPWIRE was a HIT at the conference. The price for such a unique high-tech system? Any city or county can afford it. David Blac, the Director is sure you will find his prices beat the competition.

Additional information on TRIPWIRE is available at http://www.tripwiresystems.com and information on the database at http://www.gripsystems.org and by regular mail to:

TRIPWIRE

c/o Director David Black

Factory 2, 5 Deblin Dr.

Narre Warrren, VIC 3805

Australia

+61 397030155

(Santa Rosa, CA., DougWeb, 073108) Over three hundred persons including anti-graffiti vendors, graffiti victims, police, attorney’s, community non-profits attended the NorCal Graffiti Conference sponsored by the NoGraf Network and the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Three conference rooms were filled with anti-graffiti vendors marketing incredibly useful abatement and detection products to cities and counties. Attendance included companies from Australia and Sweden.

Event organizer Randy Campbell, Executive Director of the NoGraf Network MC’d the event which provided a number of speakers on various topics from abatement, to edication and enforcement.

Santa Rosa’s mayor and a captain of police did introductory addresses thanking everyone for attending this valuable networking conference.

To: Doug Smith
RE: Attendance at the 2008 Graffiti Trade Show and Conference

Hello Doug, The Santa Rosa Police Department and The Nograf Network Inc. has joined together in order to be able to present this informative conference and Trade Show Event. It is our desire to go beyond the normal graffiti conferences of past. In this event we are trying to put together all the available vendors, including, Covert Camera Equipment, Graffiti Databases, Paint and Chemical manufacturers’ and Suppliers, Glass Etching Specialist, plus many Citizen Based Community Service Groups and we will also be providing information about successful restitution awarded to victims of graffiti. We hope to be able to provide attendees with not only an in-depth view of current programs, but also a wide range of vendors to assist in those programs.

I would like to invite you to attend this event as you are well known throughout the world as one of the few early graffiti fighters at a time when most people had never heard of graffiti. You were a private citizen and did more than anyone, to wake up local police worldwide!

This event is an accumulation of your efforts throughout the years. I have assembled a long list of speakers who will be there to provide the latest information on what is happening in the world of graffiti abatement, including many successful and tested programs to reduce or eliminate graffiti. You can view the detailed list at the website www.norcalgraffiti.com.

The Nograf Network will be happy to pick up the cost of airfare and hotel accommodations for your attendance. Dates of event are July 31- Aug 1, 2008 in Santa Rosa, CA.

Randy Campbell
President and Executive Director
The Nograf Network Inc.
A 501 (C3) Non Profit Corporation
www.nograffiti.com
509-531-1334 or [email protected]

See you in Santa Rosa, CA at the NoGraf Conference at the end of July. NoGraf was kind enough to invite me to this year’s event. I’m truly looking forward to it. Visit http://www.nograffiti.com for more conference information. I hope the City of Pleasant Hill and Concord will be there!