Graffiti is a form of destroying public property and has far more negative effects than positive ones. Many youth picked up spray paint cans and defaced public buildings with a sense of glee, believing that they are urban artists or rebels, when in reality they are just making a mess that someone else needs to clean up.
No matter how nice graffiti may look or where it is located, it is still a form of destroying public property. This urban art form takes hours to clean up, and sometimes even that isn’t enough. In many cases graffiti simply won’t come off and needs to be painted over, a time-consuming task that costs money.
“It all depends on the graffiti,” school custodian Felipe Chavez said. “Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes very hard.”
In one instance, Chavez had to paint over graffiti four times in order to totally block it from view. The process took him a little over an hour for each coat of paint.
“These kids don’t realize how expensive it is to clean up, or how long it takes,” Chavez said.
Not only is graffiti messy, it is also a highly charged gang issue. Gangs often use graffiti to “tag” areas and mark them as their turf. This tagging creates heavy tension among gangs, which can lead to confrontations and violence.
Chavez also talked about gang -related graffiti, saying that in the past students would tag one end of the school and by the time he had cleaned it up, the other side of school had also been tagged. This gang graffiti led to confrontations between gang members and more than one fight.
Finally, graffiti is malicious and just plain unnecessary. There are plenty of ways to express yourself creatively that don’t involve the destruction of public property. Painting, drawing and photography are all excellent forms of creative expression, and many are available in schools, allowing everyone to experience them. If people really like graffiti as an art style, there is no reason they can’t do it on a canvas or their own property as opposed to public buildings. Turning a spray can on public property is really just an act of spite.
All in all, graffiti is destructive, malicious and difficult to clean up. Hopefully this habit will disappear.