War against tagging gets results

Len Brown

A concerted effort to get rid of graffiti in Manukau City has paid off with a significant drop in the incidence of tagging.

For the past few years, the Manukau City Council - with police and community groups - has stepped up moves to rid the city of graffiti.

Initiatives have included an 0800 dob-a-tagger hotline, removing spray cans from display in shops and bringing in private investigators to hunt down taggers.

The result has been an estimated 70 per cent drop in tagging, says Manukau City Mayor Len Brown.

In the Letter to Manukau newsletter, Mr Brown acknowledges the work many in the community have put in to wipe out graffiti.

"We have succeeded in that we have reduced the incidence of graffiti across our city by 70 per cent in the last 2 years," he writes.

"Behind this drive to rid ourselves of graffiti and to be clean and tidy is a more important community theme. We are defining our community's boundaries of responsibility."

Community safety portfolio leader and councillor Dick Quax said the significant reduction in tagging was a result of focusing on the issue.

"It's been something that a whole lot of people have worked on."

The council has worked closely with community groups including the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust, the Maori and Pacific wardens and Neighbourhood Watch to solve the problem.

Private investigators brought in by the council had been a huge help in bringing serial taggers to justice.

Mr Quax said serial taggers had in some cases caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage in the city.

"If we ignore the small stuff, it tends to get lost on you and then the city gets more prone to graffiti," he said.

Since the investigators were introduced, dozens of taggers - aged from 13 to people in their mid-40s - had been prosecuted for their actions.

Auckland Region Graffiti Free group co-ordinator Stewart Andrews said one of the biggest challenges was changing taggers' mindsets - instilling the idea that tagging was not cool.