Graffiti
Animals mark territory in all U.S. cities
ABOVE: A wall in the alleyway between Coal Avenue and Historic Route 66 is one of the worst due to it's location. BELOW: Jay Spencer drives a forklift past graffiti on an electrical box in the alleyway between Coal Avenue and Historic Route 66 on Monday afternoon. Despite efforts by police to curb the vandalism, graffiti continues to be a big problem. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Philip Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — On June 30, 2006, the Brooklyn Museum unveiled 20 graffiti murals, each rich in color and brimming with original concepts. The exhibit ran three months and marked a change in the social psyche. What started as subversive vandalism during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s was suddenly thrust into public embrace.

But Gallup ain’t Brooklyn.

In Gallup, as in many other places, graffiti remains in its most primitive and destructive form. The markings are everywhere. Scribbles of disenfranchised youth, better known as “tags,” are scrawled illegibly down public alleyways and private fences, on downtown buildings and over doorways. You’ll find it on brick, wood, metal or concrete. To the outsider forced to view them, these strange markings are nothing more than enigmatic hieroglyphics; meaning that if artistic merit were currency, Gallup’s graffiti would be absolutely worthless. And indeed it is, although removal is costly.

The city spends about $40,000 each year cleaning graffiti, according to Parks Executive Director Ben Welch. That money keeps one full-time employee with a pressure washer running a futile race against vandals. And that’s probably the best that can be said for graffiti: It creates jobs.

The drawback is that graffiti attracts other forms of crime by signaling a lack of attention on the part of the community, according to the advocacy Web site, www.graffitihurts.org. It decreases the overall feeling of safety, thereby lowering property values and discouraging tourists. And the money spent on graffiti cleanup could have been used to better public schools, roads or parks.

The city of Albuquerque employs eight people, four crews of two, and spends roughly $1 million each year cleaning graffiti, according to Chief Public Safety Officer Pete Dinelli. Even that is a drop in the bucket when compared to larger metropolitan areas.

For example, Los Angeles county in California spent roughly $28 million in 2006, according to surveys conducted by Keep America Beautiful, a nationwide non-profit, which hosts the Web site graffitihurts.org. Chicago spent $6.5 million and Las Vegas $1.7 million.

Those figures are two years old, and recent headlines point to an increase since then. “Taking aim at vandalism,” read a July 20 headline in the Santa Fe New Mexican; and “Vandalism cases see sudden surge,” appeared in July on the front page of the Raton Range. El Paso city officials unveiled a “new, proactive” anti-graffiti initiative during a press conference just 11 days ago, on Aug. 15, according to the El Paso Times. El Paso’s plan is to spread the message that vandals will go to jail, through posters and handouts. It focuses on community involvement, encouraging residents to report graffiti vandals as soon as possible and to take steps toward quickly cleaning and painting over graffiti found on their own property.

This “community involvement” tactic is backed by Welch, and by Lt. Rick White of the Gallup Police Department, who the city sent to California for graffiti prevention training earlier this year.

“It’s definitely going to take a neighborhood effort,” White said, highlighting the difficulty of catching graffiti vandals in the act.

In fact, a neighbor’s call to metro dispatch on July 18 led to the apprehension of a 12-year-old boy who had been spotted painting a backward “R” followed by the letters “B” and “K” in a downtown alley with two accomplices.

In Gallup, where police logs are littered with more serious, violent crimes on a daily basis, prosecutors already have their hands full, although District Attorney Karl Gillson said that graffiti crimes often lead to felonious offenses. He said 65 juveniles have been prosecuted for graffiti since 1994, of which five have already gone on to commit more serious crimes such as burglary, aggravated battery, criminal sexual contact, and one pled no contest as an accomplice to first-degree murder.

Graffitihurts.org studies show that most graffiti vandals fall between ages 12 and 21, but the motivation behind their crimes is not as easily identified. Speculation ranges from boredom to influence from video games to gang activity. In Gallup, gang activity seems to be the most common assumption, but White is reluctant to assume anything.

“They’re putting gang signs up,” he said. “Whether they are in a gang or not I don’t know ... some kids want to say they’re in a group and go around bragging that they are in a gang.”

At best, the vandals are wannabe artists; at worst, they are wannabe gang-bangers. In either case the crux of the problem lingers: How to stop it?

Sue Keeler, who runs a business on Historic Route 66 in Gallup, said she’s spent hundreds of dollars painting over graffiti behind her business time and again. Everyone agrees that quickly covering the markings — within 24 hours — is the best antidote against recurrence.

Albuquerque took punishment a step further four years ago when it began filing civil charges against graffiti vandals and their parents. A caveat to New Mexico’s juvenile code known as “vicarious liability,” allows the city to receive up to $4,000 from the parents of a minor if the court rules in favor of the city, which it has 121 times since 2004. According to Dinelli, Albuquerque has reclaimed $92,358 in property damage, restitution and punitive damages since the initiative began. It has also amassed more manpower for cleanup by securing 1,348 hours of community service.

The city is usually forced to settle for pennies on the dollar, and has collected only a fraction of the cost to keep the city graffiti-free. One reason is that not all vandals have been caught and another is that many can’t afford the “tens of thousands of dollars” required for removal. But, Dinelli said, the city has yet to see a repeat offender. He said that as part of the settlement, he requires the parents of graffiti vandals to sign a contract stating that if their child vandalizes again, they will be liable for the total amount of the damages.

“I make it very clear that it will not be tolerated,” Dinelli said. “It’s no more than an animal marking its territory.”