Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

While graffiti remains an underground and illegal practice, it appeals to those with high risk behaviour traits. Because of this, association with others sharing these tendencies presents compelling opportunities. Particularly, making graffiti and other illegal and anti-social behaviour part of their regular lifestyle (Spicer, 2005).

Escalation of Graffiti

People often get into graffiti casually or with artistic intentions, then get drawn into graffiti in a much more serious way. As a result, this escalates their lifestyle from primarily graffiti to other serious crimes. For instance, involvement in theft, narcotics, weapons, assault, robbery and other illegal acts are likely for graffiti taggers. In fact, juvenile graffiti is often a gateway crime that leads young offenders into lives immersed in more serious crimes.

Graffiti as a Criminal Indicator

Police officers often discover graffiti suspects to be involved in other serious crimes. In discussion of graffiti based in the Vancouver area, Sgt. Hawthorne of BC Transit Police explained that graffiti is a good indicator of other serious crime that law enforcement agencies can leverage as a starting point of investigation that often leads to criminal charges beyond graffiti.

Sgt. Hawthorne goes on to suggests that graffiti activity can also serve as indicator of community systems vulnerabilities. Graffiti writers tend to be resourceful and are continually looking for opportunities to tag in the most advantageous locations. In particular, locations that will provide the maximum exposure and the greatest recognition. For example, finding access to train stations, subway tunnels, rooftops, water reservoirs, and a host of other potentially sensitive areas are specializations of graffiti writers. In observing graffiti writer’s ability to access locations for painting is an indicator of possible systems vulnerabilities that could be exploited for . more sinister agendas.

As a specialist in protection of transportation systems Sgt. Hawthorne has acknowledged the potential of high security and terrorist threats to some of the same locations that are accessed by graffiti writers, and that by following the patterns and locations of graffiti writers is able to recognize deficiencies and vulnerabilities in civic security infrastructure.