Motivation

My paper will look at the problem of regulating conduct when part of what is driving such conduct is its illegality. One example of such a phenomenon is graffiti (other examples may also be included). I will attempt to argue that part of the reason graffiti is difficult to counter is because it is the creation of people who belong to marginalized groups and are therefore motivated in part by a desire to upend the existing social hierarchy and flout the rules of society. The paper will focus on two different types of graffiti – tagging and gang graffiti. The two practices are different in that a tagger primarily works independently to spread his own reputation. This involves creating a personal signature which he (very few women are graffiti artists) attempts to fix in public spaces (the more inaccessible the setting the better). On the other hand, the purpose of gang graffiti is to mark territory, broadcast allegiances and enmities between various gangs, and provide advertisement for a gang. While a trained eye can easily tell the difference between a tag and gang graffiti, most people cannot. Common to both graffiti artists is a desire to let the public know of their existence while simultaneously hiding their message. The gang graffitists do this to intimidate and, therefore, the illegal nature of the act is important since it shows the outside world just how fearless the gang is. For taggers, the illegal element also enhances their reputation by making their task even harder/riskier to accomplish.

There have been a variety of different responses by law enforcement to graffiti from reactive crime prevention approaches such as “zero tolerance,” graffiti control projects, and community-based initiatives that involve the graffitists themselves. Only the latter approach attempts to address the problem by changing the norms of the subculture directly. However, I predict these programs are unlikely to succeed since they do not and cannot change the social order that graffitists are attempting to disrupt.