Graffiti is Vandalism

I believe that graffiti is vandalism unless you get permission from whoever or where ever you will be the graffiti, so if you get permission I believe it is art but if you don’t get permission it is vandalism. It affects way too many businesses and taxpayers for it to not be vandalism. The consequence should be a fine of some sort and some community service hours.

Graffiti is vandalism, I believe this because I’ve gotten a perspective of a business owner. When listening to the business owner I started to notice how much graffiti actually affects other people, especially business owners. This can affect the amount of business they get and even could scare people away because most of the time graffiti is a sign that a gang has been there or it symbolizes a crime they had committed “Public disorder crimes, such as littering and loitering and other forms of property destruction are sometimes related to graffiti crimes. 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.” (Source 4) this may be scary to others that don’t commit crimes because they could be or feel like they are being put in a dangerous situation. This affects businesses so much but it’s not even just that. Graffiti is also vandalism if they are not given permission to be doing art on their buildings, those buildings are private and arent’s for them to graffiti. Business owner Gary doesn’t like when people graffiti his things “It’s not art, well it may in fact be art but it shouldn’t be put on other peoples buildings.”(Source 2 -0:13-0:19) the graffiti has taken up his signs and the walls of his building which hurt his business a lot.

Another reason I believe graffiti is vandalism is that if you are tagging buildings then you are not getting permission which means you are not getting paid. When you think of art you think of a museum, a canvas, an art class, or maybe even money. But in this case, we are talking about taggers, taggers do create art but not the type that we want all over our buildings. Yes, it looks cool in some spots and you can even be hired to tag a specific spot but honestly, why tag something when someone out there is willing to pay you to do it? When you tag buildings you aren’t getting money for the true art that you are creating. I understand that some people love the look and love the idea of it but in reality, if you love the look of it and think you want to see it in your home why don’t you buy it? This would just be better, it would help our businesses that are being tagged with no permission given to do so and this would also get the taggers the money they need for their artwork. They could probably even make an income off of selling their artwork. This would also get rid of the theft of the products because if they are making enough money to buy it they will and they could maybe even buy more supplies to up their artwork and make it better “In addition to cleanup costs, graffiti vandals often shoplift their materials, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Stealing spray paint and markers adds an additional cost to businesses.”(Source 4) this is honestly a big issue. Shoplifting is no joke and hurts businesses just as much as tagging their buildings.

In conclusion, graffiti is vandalism. There are many solutions to graffiti, like selling your artwork and putting it on a canvas or maybe even having someone invite you to legally tag their building with their permission. If tagging a building I believe you should be fined and have to do community service hours. As cool as graffiti is and how true the talent is, it just does not belong on a building if not given permission.

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