Graffiti Hurts^® eNews
Spring 2009

HEADLINE NEWS

KAB Boosts Grant Amount for 2009 Graffiti Hurts^® Program

Keep America Beautiful announced it will increase 2009 grant amounts to help communities step up local graffiti prevention activities.

The 2009 Graffiti Hurts^® Grant Program will offer three grants of $2,500 to communities, an increase of $500 for each grant over 2008 awards. Grants are offered to one community under 100,000 population, one community between 100,000 and 300,000 population, and one community over 300,000 population. Application deadline is June 5, 2009. Download an application.

“The Graffiti Hurts Grant Program supports grassroots efforts that improve local quality of life and engage individuals in taking personal responsibility for their neighborhoods,” said Keep America Beautiful President and CEO Matt McKenna. “Communities need resources to more effectively combat graffiti vandalism, and we thank The Sherwin Williams Company for stepping up to help meet those needs.” 

>Learn more

Research released early this year, but conducted in 2005, provides more evidence to support the “broken windows” theory that disorder contributes to crime.  Researchers at Harvard and Suffolk University, in partnership with local police, identified 34 crime hot spots in Lowell, Mass.  In half of them, authorities cleared trash, fixed street lights, and prohibited loitering. Abandoned buildings were secured, businesses forced to meet code, and more arrests made for misdemeanors. In the remaining hot spots, normal policing and services continued.

The results were a 20% drop in calls to police from the areas which received extra attention, and a report back from police that cleaning up the physical environment was very effective at reducing crime.

>Read the Boston Globe article
>Or, read the National Criminal Justice Reference Service paper, "Policing Crime and Disorder Hot Spots: A Randomized Controlled Trial"

GRAFFITI PREVENTION LAWS

Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Councilman Dennis Zine intend to propose an ordinance allowing private property owners to turn responsibility for cleanup over to the city.  That would allow the City to take the vandal and his or her parents to civil court and sue for damages.  According to Delgadillo, “The city is committed like never before to holding you [parents] responsible.”  Los Angeles spends $7 million each year to remove graffiti vandalism. 

>Read more

Three anti-graffiti bills are currently pending in the Texas State Legislature. One would require stores to verify the ages and record the identities of people buying spray paint. Another would allow property used in felony-level graffiti incidents to be seized. A third would require property owners to remove graffiti. 

>More

GRAFFITI PREVENTION TOOLS

TAGS Hosts 2009 Anti-Graffiti Symposium

The Township of Esquimalt will co-host the national TAGS 2009 Anti-Graffiti Symposium, with the Victoria Police Department (West Division) on October 21-22, 2009, at the Delta Ocean Pointe Resort which is located in Victoria, B.C., Canada.

The 2009 TAGS Anti-Graffiti Symposium aims to educate law enforcement agencies, local governments and the general public about issues of graffiti vandalism in their communities and to understand who is doing it, what it means, how we investigate it, how we prevent it, and how we control it.

>For details on conference registration, hotel accommodations, and schedule of events, go to http://www.togetheragainstgraffiti.ca/ or www.esquimalt.ca/businessdevelopment/tags2009.

Sgt. Dwight Waldo, San Bernardino Police Department and author of LADA’s Graffiti Manual, will offer a training course, “Taggers and the Graffiti Culture,” for prosecutors and law enforcement personnel on May 27, 2009 at the San Bernardino Police Department.  To sign up for this FREE class, contact Lisa Patnode at (909) 384-5742.

The course provides an in-depth analysis of the tagger culture and is geared for patrol officers who may be involved in active graffiti investigations or special units that deal with quality of life issues.  Sgt. Waldo is a nationally-recognized expert in this field. The course does not cover specialty gang investigations.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) is offering to share its Tracking and Automated Graffiti Reporting System (TAGRS) at no cost with any law enforcement agency wanting to implement the system in its jurisdiction. 

TAGRS is used to store and track, using a GPS, graffiti incidents.  It is designed to help investigators identify and prosecute graffiti suspects. Since September 2008, when OCSD began using TAGRS, they have had a 20% increase in cases cleared and a reduction in removal costs of $50,000. 

While TAGRS will be provided at no cost, any implementing agency is responsible for their own data.  The OCSD will assist with the initial familiarization training of the system with other agency’s personnel.  Any subsequent system support is the responsibility of the individual agency.

According to Ramin Aminloo, OCSD, “Our goal is to share data among agencies and exchange information. Currently we have L.A. Sheriff, LAPD on piloting and the entire Orange County contract cities using this system including Costa Mesa, Irvine, Tustin and Newport Beach.”

>Read more
>Watch a news report on TAGRS

COMMUNITY FOCUS

The City of Fort Worth, Texas, has had a robust graffiti prevention and abatement program since 1991, and in 1996 a crime prevention sales tax helped to fund additional graffiti abatement and staff.  They also added a murals program, averaging about 12 per year. In 2008, the city cleaned up about 7,500 sites at a cost of more than $500,000.

In 2009, they’re adding graffiti education to the mix.  A task force organized after a City Council member expressed concern with the increase in graffiti vandalism, has helped kick-start a robust after-school graffiti education program.  Efforts to step up education at the elementary level and to begin mural projects with middle and high school youth are underway.

>Read more

(Photo credit: Catherine Meredith, Morning Call)

Allentown, Pa.’s mayor has unveiled a new billboard campaign to promote the city’s graffiti “tip” line and reward program.  They also report that this, and other anti-graffiti initiatives, have already resulted in several arrests. The billboards will be placed in six locations during March, 2009.  The city, working with Lehigh Valley Crime Stoppers, offers rewards of up to $500 for information leading to the arrest of graffiti vandals.

>Read more