KEY POINTS:
Does graffiti cause murder? The question hangs heavy in the air of Southview Place, Manurewa, in Auckland's Manukau City where, last Saturday night, a 15-year-old lay dead in a driveway, his shirt soaked in blood from a stab wound. Pihema Clifford Cameron was killed, allegedly, because he was tagging fences.
The day after the fatal stabbing, Mayor Len Brown was more concerned about the defacement than the death: "Tagging is a starting point for a lot of youngsters getting on to the criminal treadmill. Graffiti in our city is an issue we absolutely want to get on top of." He didn't even mention the 50-year-old businessman, Bruce William Emery, charged with murder.
Brown wasn't alone in his apparent lack of compassion for the victim. Letters to this newspaper seemed callous: "I personally have absolutely no sympathy for the tagger!" And: "The tagger wasn't murdered. He was killed. The word murder should be used to define only an innocent person's death at the hands of someone else."
Christchurch City councillor Barry Corbett jumped into the fray, saying the alleged murderer should be set free. "If I was on the jury, I'd let him get away with it, but that's just me."
Perhaps it's the summer heat. But the inflammatory comments raise disturbing questions. Such as whether the taking of human life can be excused because someone defaces a fence. Or why graffiti makes some people so angry they justify killing. Doubts must also be raised about the causal claim Brown and others make - that "zero tolerance" of graffiti reduces crime.
The circumstances of this death indicate the opposite. That local government zeal to rid neighbourhoods of graffiti may have created an environment of moral outrage that condones taking the law into our own hands. That zero tolerance towards tagging is a PR exercise gone horribly wrong. The removal of scribble from our neighbourhoods was supposed to make them safer. But at what cost?
The PR is good. It has transformed so called "quality-of-life offences" from mere nuisances or annoyances into conduct so harmful that it warrants uncompromising, expensive police and local government intervention. We are left in no doubt that tagging's disorderly display contributes to serious crimes. The writing is on the wall. Disorder sprayed from a can - on fences, bridges, trees, lampposts and just about any other clean surface available - is a gateway to mayhem.
The idea that crime is spawned from disorder comes from the "Broken Windows" theory espoused in a 1982 Atlantic Monthly article. It began: "Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside ... "
The theory sees crime as an epidemic. A broken window can be a signal that no one cares, that anything goes and before long anarchy rules. Actually, there's no empirical evidence that any of this is true.
But that hasn't stopped people putting Broken Windows into practice by giving carte blanche to the police and others to stomp out minor offences. Rehabilitation doesn't get a look in. The aim is not to reform the disorderly, but to punish, exclude and get them off the street.
The idea was fervently taken up in the mid-1980s by the New York Transit Authority determined to remove graffiti from the subway. Line by line, car by car, graffiti was painted over or removed with solvents on a daily basis. A message was sent to graffiti vandals that their handiwork would never see the light of day. Similar strategies were applied to fare-beating. And in 1994, when Rudolf Giuliani was elected mayor, the strategy broke out above ground - a city-wide crackdown on street disorder, ranging from drunkenness to "squeegee men" washing car windows at intersections.
Did it work? We'll get to that. But first, some other questions need to be answered.
WHAT IS GRAFFITI?
In ancient Greece and the Roman empire, unauthorised inscriptions and drawings were carved on walls and monuments. They included Latin curses, ancient spells, declarations of love and political slogans. Since then the urge to scribble on surfaces has waxed and waned, but never left us. Like the famous "Kilroy was here" doodle left around the world by World War II US servicemen and others.
Today's graffiti, mostly done with a spray-paint can, has evolved out of American hip-hop culture. Its predominant display is the tag - a short, stylised individual or gang signature.
Here, the select committee grappling with the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill found some problems. The bill describes the act of marking graffiti as defacing property in any way - a wide scope could restrict legitimate street art. But the committee argued that if "indiscriminate and unlawful defacing" occurs without consent, it is an attack on property which should be dealt with accordingly.
IS IT ART?
"Rubbish to that," said Labour MP George Hawkins introducing the Manukau bill's second reading in June last year. "Having been an art teacher for many years, I do not see any artistic merit in defacing someone's fence or other property, or in defacing public facilities ... "
But there is no doubt some graffiti is art. Last February, the celebrated English graffiti artist Banksy sold his Bombing Middle England at auction for £102,000. Anti-graffiti programmes such as Hutt City Council's Art 4 Change and Christchurch City Council's Legal Art Programme, involve working with "graf" artists and painting murals on designated art walls.
The mentors encourage taggers to use their artistic abilities to gain recognition in an acceptable and legal way. The aim is to teach young people that the difference between graffiti art and vandalism is whether or not they have permission to paint.
Speaking against the Manukau bill, Maori Party MP Hone Harawira encouraged MPs to look at Manukau City's 45-metre-long graffiti mural at the TelstraClear Pacific Centre, designed by "graffiti legends" Otis Frizzell and Dan Tippet. "It is a celebration of the talent and creativity of the people of Manukau," he said.
WHY DO TAGGERS TAG?
"Fame, notoriety and territorial recognition," says Auckland City Council's graffiti adviser Rob Shields. Over a decade of dealing with graffiti, Shields has seen all sorts of motivations: rebellion, art and entertainment - enhanced with the thrill of being illegal. The object of the game is to proliferate a tag on to anything with a prominent surface, to see how much fame and notoriety can be attained, and what one can get away with. Some do it because they are bored, others as a dare or because of peer pressure. Competition can also play a part. To annoy others, particularly adults, is yet another impulse.
But our understanding of the sociological phenomenon of graffiti is limited. "Research in this area would be valuable in the nationwide battle with graffiti vandalism," says the Beat Graffiti Guide produced by the Ministry of Justice and Local Government New Zealand.
While graffiti to make a political comment still exists, Shields says the prevailing graffiti - tagging - is an expression of youth culture itself. "The hip-hop culture is a very strong influence on our youth - while that continues we will manage the graffiti that comes with it as best we can." That includes graffiti vandals working as part of a crew - their tags reflecting their gang, their sense of belonging and bravado, such as trashing the tags of another gang.
Shields says the majority of taggers he sees aren't delinquent. "Eighty-five per cent are not bad kids - generally speaking they tell the truth when confronted. We've just got to steer them in another direction." It's the remaining 15 per cent - the ones who create most of the graffiti - who Shields says provide the challenge.
WHY DO WE HATE TAGGING?
Police minister Annette King knows first hand what the emotions are when a tagger strikes. Her home has been hit twice in the last six weeks.
"I felt angry because it is a violation of private property. That's why people get angry about tagging - the lack of respect for other people's property."
King says tagging often makes a community feel unsafe. "It feels like a community which is not under control which is why there is a far greater emphasis by the police and by government agencies and local authorities on getting rid of it."
The feelings give rise to an antagonism against taggers. The language of warfare is used in anti-graffiti campaigns - "graffiti under attack" and "community declares war on graffiti". The majority see graffiti as ugly and unlawful vandalism which has no acceptable justification without permission.
"I can confirm there are some very angry people out there who are absolutely sick to death of their properties being vandalised by taggers," says Shields. "I've seen people reduced to tears who have absolutely had enough. They want those doing it held accountable for their actions."
WHAT STOPS IT?
Nothing really. But the scourge can be held at bay. For the last three years, Auckland City has spent $1.6 million a year of ratepayers' money fighting the menace. The level of graffiti on city surfaces is much improved from several years ago, but remains static. "We're winning the battles, but we haven't won the war," says Shields.
The number one weapon is immediate eradication. Like other councils, Auckland City runs a free-of-charge eradication service for street frontage private property. Tags are photographed and compiled into a database as evidence for court prosecutions. Closed-circuit television cameras are in operation, and stings have been carried out in areas that have been most affected.
Prosecutions of vandals have resulted in fines and community work - with taggers often required to paint out their and others' tags.
Last year the Auckland Region Graffiti Free Project was set up, bringing together the council and the police. It's aim is to eliminate graffiti in the Auckland region.
Shields says it's critical to combine eradication with prevention and education programmes. That includes expanding urban design initiatives - such as installing automatic sensor security lighting and using dark paint colours or anti-graffiti coatings on walls and fences.
WHAT'S MISSING FROM OUR LAWS?
Not a lot. Existing laws provide plenty of ways to prosecute taggers. What was new in the Manukau bill was controls on the sale of paint - especially to those under 18. Research indicates such legislation is difficult to implement and isn't very effective. Here, it also runs foul of our Bill of Rights because prohibiting paint sales to minors would be discrimination on the grounds of age.
The bill also wanted to empower police to require anyone suspected of tagging to give their name and address, plus that of anyone involved - an infringement on the right to remain silent.
But the government is looking as part of its STOP ( Stop Tagging Our Place) strategy to introduce legislation to refine existing laws and punishments around graffiti. The legislation will also include restrictions on the sale of spray paints.
DOES ZERO TOLERANCE WORK?
Broken Windows is one of the most widely discredited theories in the social sciences.
Study after study has concluded there is at best "a modest relationship" between the reduction in nuisance crimes and the reduction in serious crimes, like robbery and murder.
In retrospect, the principal causes behind New York City's crime drop had nothing to do with Giuliani. More fundamental social forces were at play. They included: unprecedented economic growth with jobs for millions of young people, a receding of the 80s crack epidemic, growth in the prison population courtesy of new drug laws, an increase in the numbers of police initiated by Giuliani's predecessor, and, possibly, as Freakonomics argues, the legalisation of abortion a generation earlier.
Studies also show other cities that did not implement zero tolerance tactics achieved comparable reductions in crime.
The Broken Windows theory assumes that disorder in a community means a neighbourhood has lost control and doesn't care about crime. But there are other plausible meanings. It could signal artistic ferment, a youth hangout, rebellion, or an alternative lifestyle.
Either way, graffiti throughout the ages has always been a signal of something happening behind the scenes. Painting it out may keep it from public view, but is unlikely to stop the expression.
More worrying is that in our efforts to stamp out unsightly property defacement, we may have fuelled something worse - graffiti rage.
