Tagging and Graffiti - Victoria University of Wellington
Tagging and Graffiti - Victoria University of Wellington
Tagging and Graffiti - Victoria University of Wellington
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<strong>Tagging</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Graffiti</strong>: attitudes <strong>and</strong> experiences <strong>of</strong> New Zeal<strong>and</strong>ers<br />
If you put a bombing on a wall it will stop people just putting gang signs <strong>and</strong> stuff on<br />
it. So that is why you gotta put a mural on it (Focus group participant)<br />
If they did something cool there [on a subway that is regularly hit with graffiti] it<br />
wouldn’t get tagged (Focus group participant).<br />
Participants in graffiti were less likely to agree that <strong>of</strong>fender clean-up programmes, ‘naming<br />
<strong>and</strong> shaming’ <strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong>fenders, custodial sentences or educational initiatives would prove effective<br />
in stopping young people from writing graffiti. The views <strong>of</strong> ‘sometime participants’ tended to<br />
more closely relate to those who were ‘non-participants’; they tended to agree in greater<br />
numbers that educational initiatives would prove effective desistance strategies. Focus group<br />
discussion considered the impact that various responses to graffiti <strong>and</strong> tagging might have<br />
<strong>and</strong> tended to suggest that tougher criminal justice sanctions might not directly deter<br />
<strong>of</strong>fenders:<br />
[If given community service] You would probably do 50 hours, half <strong>of</strong> that then<br />
get back <strong>and</strong> do some more tagging (Focus group participant)<br />
I think the way <strong>of</strong> putting in harsher punishments for young people isn’t going<br />
to do anything because young people don’t have much <strong>of</strong> an outlet in the first<br />
place. So doing this sort <strong>of</strong> stuff <strong>and</strong> punishing them for it is just going to<br />
make them even more rebellious. If you actually give them an outlet to do it<br />
that is what will solve the problem. Rather than punishing them for expressing<br />
themselves (Focus group participant).<br />
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