Tagging and Graffiti - Victoria University of Wellington

Tagging and Graffiti: attitudes and experiences of New Zealanders
Table 15: Average rating of reasons to stop doing graffiti
Reasons to stop doing graffiti Rating
Being apprehended by police 2.34 Most effective
If my friends didn’t like what I was doing 2.56
Being caught 2.70
If my family disapproved 3.46
If the graffiti was removed soon after I did it 3.80 Least effective
Others stated that having legal graffiti walls or ‘tolerance zones’ would stop them from doing
graffiti illegally.
Having areas where Graffiti-Art was legal would stop me from expressing my art in
public places that are considered illegal (Online survey respondent)
If there were public places where one could demonstrate their art which was allowed
then that would help. If you look into Venice Beach or a place called homeland, they
have areas and competitions where you have a piece of wall and are free to
demonstrate your work. Please look into this (Online survey respondent).
Other ways to deter people from tagging were as highlighted as:
No one will paint on plants. So build a fence or framing against the wall and grow a
vine over it. Sure it costs money but you only need to do it once on that wall rather
than using your so called ‘ant-tag’ paint weekly (Online survey respondent)
There should be a big building with a competition with inside walls. Make them
practice at home and then have prizes of the best wall. It would be like an art gallery
(Focus group participant)
All respondents were asked to rate five approaches to stopping young people writing graffiti,
all of which are practiced or have been proposed in recent debates about tagging and graffiti
in New Zealand. Respondents were asked to ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘neither agree nor
disagree’, ‘disagree or strongly disagree’; each category was scored, from 5 for strongly
agree down to 1 for strongly disagree. In aggregate terms, Table 16 shows the average score
for each option:
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