PREVENTION

The War on Recurrent Graffiti Vandalism

A community can quickly become overwhelmed by graffiti vandalism if graffiti isn't addressed promptly. Most graffiti vandals are tagging for recognition, so the most effective strategy to combat recurrence is removing graffiti within 24 hours. Timely graffiti removal alone may never eliminate graffiti in your community, but it will give you the best chance. When a town starts to be overrun by graffiti it attracts new graffiti vandals from other areas, this can happen very fast since most of these vandals share graffiti photos and information on social networking sites. In this section we'll give you suggestions that will help prevent graffiti and deter new graffiti vandals.

Developing a Zero Tolerance Attitude

For a community to eliminate graffiti vandalism they must develop a zero tolerance attitude. This attitude will come naturally to a community who's educated in the importance of timely graffiti removal. Network with others in your area to find a group of people with an interest in eliminating graffiti. The group you choose must have a core goal of educating their community.

The three most important points of education are as follows:

Once you have a nice group of like-minded volunteers, it's time to solidify a plan to deal with graffiti.

Key Elements of a Solid Anti-Graffiti Plan

A solid plan should include the following:

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  Educating the entire community on the seriousness of having graffiti removed within 24 hours.
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  A proper graffiti analysis to create a profile of the vandal. Sometimes you can get an idea of the type of tagger by the style of the tag.

  Graffiti crews (A group of friends/graffiti vandals) tend to put up bigger bubble/block style graffiti with their crew's abbreviations somewhere on the tag. Crews put up massive pieces and work in numbers, so their vandalism can be expensive and hard to overcome.
  
  A bomber is usually a single vandal from a crew or just solo individual, who puts up multiple tags in a community overnight. A bomber's tag generally looks like a very fast paced handwriting.
  
  Gang affiliates tags are normally not artistic at all; their tags are use simply to mark territory or disrespect to rivals.
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  A database to log information about graffiti (i.e. photos, locations, style, removal costs). This is very easy to do by creating a community graffiti prevention Facebook page. Facebook will also allow others to upload photos and information about any new graffiti spotted in the area.
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  An active collaboration with local police. When you regularly update police with information about new vandalism they can focus their effort to the area with biggest problem.
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  Graffiti spotters to monitor and report new graffiti to the group and police regularly.
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  An active relationship with a professional graffiti removal company. When you have an active relationship with a graffiti removal service you can get better graffiti removal rates for your community.