Tagging and Graffiti - Victoria University of Wellington

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Tagging and Graffiti: attitudes and experiences of New Zealanders graffiti could be written (so-called ‘zones of tolerance’) – to which around 80 per cent of all three groups ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ – those who wrote graffiti (whether relatively often or only occasionally) reported much less agreement for measures than did those who were non-graffiti writers. The comments provided by more than 100 respondents provide some insight into the impact that the provision of legal sites for graffiti had: … I love to walk around the city and see little doodles in imaginative places. I think that maybe there should be areas which are okay to graffiti, but have these areas monitored to ensure there’s no gang tagging. (Online survey respondent). Figure 4: Strategies to prevent graffiti, by participation (per cent agree/strongly agree) 82.4% 78.8% 78.2% 68.6% 52.9% 42.3% 41.3% 47.8% 45.1% 54.0% 50.4% 33.5% 33.8% 23.8% 25.4% Legitimate venues Offender clean-up Name and shame' offenders Custodial sentences Education on victim impact Writers Sometime writers Non-writers As noted in the literature review, several community projects involving painting murals have had success in deterring graffiti vandalism or tagging. Graffiti writers from both the survey and the focus groups also stated that they would not tag respected murals, and agreed that this would be an effective strategy to deter graffiti vandalism or tagging. For the respect of ‘Graffiti Art’ I would not go round taggin on a piece of artwork (Online survey respondent) ….. or if there was an art work/mural on the surface [I wouldn’t graffiti or tag it] (Online survey respondent) 46
Tagging and Graffiti: attitudes and experiences of New Zealanders If you put a bombing on a wall it will stop people just putting gang signs and stuff on it. So that is why you gotta put a mural on it (Focus group participant) If they did something cool there [on a subway that is regularly hit with graffiti] it wouldn’t get tagged (Focus group participant). Participants in graffiti were less likely to agree that offender clean-up programmes, ‘naming and shaming’ of offenders, custodial sentences or educational initiatives would prove effective in stopping young people from writing graffiti. The views of ‘sometime participants’ tended to more closely relate to those who were ‘non-participants’; they tended to agree in greater numbers that educational initiatives would prove effective desistance strategies. Focus group discussion considered the impact that various responses to graffiti and tagging might have and tended to suggest that tougher criminal justice sanctions might not directly deter offenders: [If given community service] You would probably do 50 hours, half of that then get back and do some more tagging (Focus group participant) I think the way of putting in harsher punishments for young people isn’t going to do anything because young people don’t have much of an outlet in the first place. So doing this sort of stuff and punishing them for it is just going to make them even more rebellious. If you actually give them an outlet to do it that is what will solve the problem. Rather than punishing them for expressing themselves (Focus group participant). 47
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Tagging and Graffiti - Victoria University of Wellington

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