The Criminalization Of Graffiti: A Poor Man's Crime

Graffiti: A Poor Man’s Crime
Graffiti has always been, since the 1960s, a controversial yet unobtrusive topic. The major debate of whether or not graffiti is a form of art or if it is simply just a crime has been around ever since the first graffiti artists spread their graffiti all throughout urban areas. In the article, “Art and Crime: Conceptualising Graffiti in the City”, Cameron McAuliffe and Kurt Iveson discuss all the different perspectives and arguments people have involving the criminalization of graffiti, graffiti as art, and protecting graffiti’s authenticity. Many political figures mentioned in the article have tried to heavily criminalize the act of graffiti for various reasons. However, another question arises surrounding the

One example of when the youth used different forms of graffiti the resist legal, political, and religious authority, was the epidemic with the Berlin Wall. The youth at the time wanted to rebel against the German government and express themselves through the graffiti as well as making a statement and creating this form of resistance. Jeff Ferrell in the article, “Urban Graffiti: Crime, Control, and Resistance”, says that “Contemporary graffiti writing occurs in an urban environment increasingly defined by segregation and control of social space” (78). Graffiti also creates a sense of control for people who live in a community with poverty and hardships. They use graffiti to control their public space and how it looks. They want to create a space that represents them and show the public how they are living. Making graffiti illegal due to the fact that it is a way for young people, or anyone, to get their voices heard and their statements put out into the public is oppression. There has also been extreme measures to prevent graffiti. Local and city councils have set curfews in the past, along with rules such as no loud music in certain neighborhoods. Also, there have even been laws passed that charge the parents of children who have been caught doing the graffiti. Authorities are enforcing these rules to oppress voices of the urban youth. It is an infinite battle between artists and authorities. Criminalizing graffiti and oppressing people’s voices, will lead to more resistance against authority which just leads to a cycle that will never end. In the article, “The Reciprocal City: Performing Solidarity-Mediating Space Through Street Art and Graffiti”, Christensen and Thor argue that, “For artists, graffiti is a way to challenge that hegemony over corporate control of space as well as right of capital to dictate how spaces are shaped and adorned” (587). In this quote,