Art or Vandalism?

Is graffiti considered to be art or vandalism? Personally, I say it is vandalism. A reason why I believe this is because most graffiti is placed among private property without permission. A lot of graffiti is placed on large walls or sides of a building of either business owners or property owners. Of course without permission, it is considered to be vandalism. Why would graffiti be okay to do on someone else’s property without consent? The same rules apply if someone was to enter a property that is not theirs and is in no relation to them. It isn’t their space to be occupying. In some communities graffiti becomes so bad that they have people who gather to remove it. “Community groups and government departments coordinate graffiti removal teams.” (Steve Dolan) There would be no need to remove graffiti if it was placed on areas that were okay with the public creating random art on it. Why place the graffiti on places that are going to remove it when you could make it an actual job and get paid?

Another reason is because lots of graffiti in one area is related to high crime rate which makes the quality of life in that city go down. “Public disorder crimes, such as littering and loitering and other forms of property destruction are sometimes related to graffiti crimes.” (Graffiti as Vandalism) Graffiti allows one person to be in one area for a good amount of time. The more time spent in that one area, the higher chances there are for littering, because of trash like food wrappers/cups or bottles, and loitering in posted areas. Those begin to cause more issues that can be based off the fact that graffiti is happening in those areas. There is also a concern of tagging being a gateway crime. “Because most taggers are males between 15 and 23, there is the concern that tagging may be a ‘gateway crime’ and may lead young offenders to more serious or dangerous crimes such as truancy and drug and alcohol use.” (Graffiti as Vandalism) The quality of life in areas that have a lot of graffiti are going to lower because if graffiti is a gateway crime, the crime rate in that area is going to skyrocket and people are not going to want to visit or live in that city. Would you feel safe in a city where the crime rate is skyrocketing? Because I would not.

That leads me to my next point which is that graffiti becomes costly to remove. Even though the graffiti could be on someone’s private property, it doesn’t mean they are paying for the removal, especially in a big city. We are all paying for the amount of money for graffiti to be removed and if graffiti wasn’t placed in places that it wasn’t wanted, there would be no need for our money to go into the cost to remove it. “In 2006, Chicago budgeted $6.5 million while Omaha, Nebraska spends about $100,000 annually, according to graffithurts.org” (Graffiti as Vandalism) The bigger the city, the higher the amount of money to pay for graffiti removal. I personally wouldn’t want to know that my money I have to pay is going towards the removal of graffiti because irresponsible people can’t respect buildings enough not to paint all over them. Overall, I strongly believe that graffiti is vandalism because it offers no positive affect to the area.

“Graffiti, Market St” by Salim Virji is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.