Graffiti Persuasive Essay

Around the world, and for thousands of years, public areas have been illicitly defaced by criminals wielding all types of instruments to write, draw, or scratch with their individual purposes. Graffiti, as it’s called, is of course illegal, and is beginning to become hefty a problem in many urban areas. The amount of money put into cleaning buildings and cracking down on the offenders is outweighing the detestability the graffiti actually brings to a community; and that’s exactly where the argument lies. What about those who see graffiti in an optimistic manner? Many can urge that graffiti enlightens a society and should be cherished with the same amount of care as any other work of art. I, for one, strongly acknowledge that graffiti is in fact illegal, but also as an art; only when the purpose is an expression of those who made it. On the other hand, some see any form of public defacing as strictly vandalism, and therefore showing no artistic value.

There are two main categories that almost all graffiti can be placed into, “bombing” and “burning.” Burning, in which artists spend hours in one spot pouring their

While I grant that graffiti is an act of crime, this second debate is still loosely knit as ideally, graffiti is both an art and vandalism. Eric Felisbret furthers this argument by showing understanding that the whole crime aspect of graffiti is an art within itself, not only must the artist have artistic attributed, but “must also be willing to work outside the law and assume great risk.” If it wasn’t for the law, then there would be no force to “push the art to evolve” (Olivero). He later goes on to say that the ones who qualify both of these requirements, have perfected the art of graffiti. Hence, if graffiti was not an act of defacement, then it would be less of an