PREVENTING GRAFFITI AND

VANDALISM

Susan Geason
First City Communications
Sydney

Paper presented at
Designing Out Crime: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)
convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology and NRMA Insurance
and held at the Hilton Hotel, Sydney, 16 June 1989
 Preventing Graffiti and Vandalism
Ms Susan Geason
First City Communications Sydney
Differences and Similarities
When the media indulge in their periodic outbursts of outrage at vandalism and
graffiti, the picture they usually present is one of wilful destruction by young,
alienated, often socially- and economically-disadvantaged teenagers. The truth is
much more complex. Vandalism and graffiti are very different problems, and each is
multi-faceted. Not all graffiti is written by alienated teenagers, and not all vandalism
constitutes wilful damage. Before we can begin to devise solutions, therefore, we must
understand the problems.
Graffiti tests the axiom that beauty is in the eye of the be holder. To many train
travellers graffiti is ugly, anti-social daubs, while for the kids who write them, it may
be the only self-expression they know, perhaps their only claim to fame. Imaginative
graffiti can make the concrete walls or dilapidated factory walls it decorates look a lot
better, and some artists, sociologists and writers even reward graffiti as a sophisticated
art form, calling it "spraycan art". (A point of view which, I might add, tends to make
railway officials and maintenance crews somewh at irritable.)
For some exponents, graffiti is a powerful propaganda tool. Many anti-smokers, critics
of the consumer society – and even judges – are supportive of the efforts of
"Billboard-Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions" (BUGA UP), in
defacing billboard advertisements for what they see as harmful products.
Similarly, not all vandalism is anti-social. A great deal (estimates run as high as three-
quarters) is unintentional. That is, it results from poor design which can't stand up to
wear and tear; or it is caused by people adapting their environment to make it work
better; or it results from kids being kids. In these cases there is no intention to cause
damage, but the result is viewed by others as vandalism.
I will give you some examples of unintentional vandalism. Flimsy doors without door
stops are quickly damaged in busy entrances. People take short cuts across lawns
because the paths are in the wrong places. This happened on Broadway, in Sydney,
where Fairfax journalists from across the road wore a path through the University of
Technology's newly landscaped gardens to reach the main road and killed the grass;
the University eventually gave in and formalised the pathway.
Other examples are: people making holes in fences for short-cuts; damage to the backs
of public seats because people sit on them; and bikes propped up against shop
windows breaking glass because there is nowhere else to leave them. In most of these
cases, the problem could have been avoided by better planning and design – maybe
even by using a little common sense about human nature. You don't need a market
research company to tell you people will always take the shortest route from A to B
unless physical or psychological barriers prevent them.
Criminologists have come up with the following categories of vandalism:
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• Acquisitive vandalism – damage done to acquire money or property, e.g.

damaging telephone boxes.
• Tactical vandalism – damage done to achieve another end – like smashing a
window to commit a robbery.
• Ideological vandalism – to further a cause or get a message across, such as
slogans on buildings and BUGA UP's billboard defacement.
• Play vandalism – damage inflicted incidentally or deliberately as part of a game
or competition. I seem to recall throwing rocks at street lights was a favourite
pastime of small boys in my day.
• Malicious vandalism – damage done to express rage or frustration – scratching
paintwork on expensive cars springs to mind.
• Innocuous vandalism – damage done to property regarded by young people as
unimportant or of no value –e .g. slashing railway seats.
I am not absolutely convinced by some of these categories – slashing railways seats
doesn't seem all that "innocuous" to me, but this confusion about names is probably a
reflection of confusion about the motives of some offenders. We can see what
motivates tactical, ideological and vindictive vandalism, but the motives behind play,
malicious and innocuous vandalism- most common on railways -are much less clear,
and the problem, unfortunately, much more widespread.
In the Institute of Criminology's forthcoming publication Preventing Graffiti and
Vandalism, which I co-wrote with Paul Wilson, we took a situational crime prevention
approach, described in some detail by earlier speakers. That is, we concentrated on
changing the environment to minimise the opportunity for the offender to cause
damage, rather than trying to change the offender's character or motivation. The
attraction of this approach is that it can work in the short term while researchers and
policy makers work on longer-term solutions to the problem of crime.
Examples of opportunity reduction would be using materials that are resistant to
scratching and marking, improved lighting and better design to reduce vandals' cover,
security patrols, restrictions on the sale of spray-paints and markers, community
surveillance, and even electronic surveillance.
Before I launch into specific situational crime prevention strategies for graffiti and
vandalism, I will give you a thumbnail sketch of the scope of the problem facing
public and private property owners.
Telecom Australia spends $18 million annually repairing telephone vandalism, and in
Liverpool, England, before an anti-vandalism campaign began to bite, half the city's
public phones were out of commission at any given time.
The NSW Government's school arson bill has escalated to $16.5 million over the past
two-and-a-half years; while arson in English schools has been costing between 25 and
30 million pounds annually.
Graffiti clean-ups are now costing the NSW State Rail Authority (SRA) $7 million a
year, and the MET – Melbourne's urban rail system – spends $5 million annually.
 3

NSW Transport Investigation Police tell of a gang of nine spray-painters who caused
$182,000 worth of damage in two nights.
But the cost is not only a matter of dollars and cents. By 1988 six youths had been
killed in NSW while painting graffiti on the outsides of trains, and many others were
injured. Increased fear of crime is also a cost, and a 1986 Australian National Opinion
Poll (ANOP) survey of Sydney rail commuters found that 80 per cent of them were
worried about their personal safety on trains. As a constant, all-hours train traveller, I
personally regard this as a gross over-reaction to the real threat of violence on Sydney
trains, but perhaps as an ex-journalist, I am a little less susceptible than the general
public to what I read newspapers, and as an ex-market researcher, I tend to reserve
judgment on some poll results.
But to get back to real rather than perceived problems, in vandalised or fire-damaged
schools, pupils and teachers are inconvenienced, schooling is disrupted and many
children are severely disadvantaged when resources like libraries and science
laboratories are put out of action.
In housing estates the elderly and the vulnerable are afraid to go out, playgrounds are
destroyed, and those living in the estates suffer from the stigma of coming from
damaged and vandalised homes.

Public Housing

As vandalism is a major problem in public housing, I will start there. Housing

authorities need to take both a diagnostic and prognostic approach to vandalism. That
is, they should look back and see what was damaged and replace it with something
stronger; but they should anticipate future problems by using easy-to-maintain or
replaceable materials and fittings. This dual approach will only work, however, if it is
linked to a system of management which responds positively to feedback from users
and maintenance staff.
And for their part, architects have to tread a fine line between durability and good
looks, as "hard" or unsympathetic architecture discourages people from using
facilities.
Wendy Sarkissian, who spoke to you this morning, came up with three major
strategies for minimising vandalism in public housing in her 1984 study for the then
NSW Housing Commission.
She recommended:
• avoiding a high density of children;
• providing adequate facilities for youth to give them something to do; and
• making vandalism more difficult by using vandal-proof materials wherever
possible.
The following commonsense strategies emerged from the British and Australian
research and case studies I examined for my book.
 4

• Management needs to be humane and consultative, partly as a desirable social

goal in itself, but also to help instil a sense of ownership and pride in public
housing tenants.
• There needs to be ongoing communications between the architects and
designers who build the accommodation, and the maintenance staff who look
after it. This way, design weaknesses can be picked up and rectified.
• Children's play should be managed so it does not turn into vandalism.
• Good maintenance is essential so that vandalised property and a general air of
neglect do not encourage more destruction.
In an excellent English book Designing Against Vandalism, published by the English
Design Council in 1979, editor Jane Sykes gave the following design tips for
preventing graffiti and vandalism:
• Apply approved graffiti such as murals or mosaics on tempting surfaces.
• Avoid soft-textured wall finishes that can be easily scratched, particularly if the
surface is a different colour from the underlying material.
• Avoid light colours on walls.
• If you've given up on stopping graffiti altogether on a particular area, put in
surfaces that are easy and inexpensive to renew.
• Protect vital structural elements, e.g. by cladding concrete with steel or a strong
sheeting material.
• Install piping inside rather than outside a building.
• Below a height of 2 metres, drain pipes should be cast iron, and should be built
up with concrete so they cannot be wrenched off a building and so bracket
fixings cannot be used as footholds.
• Use toughened glass in ground-floor windows or where glass is easily broken
by carelessness or heavy use.
• Install vandal-proof lifts.
• If warnings advertising penalties are to be used, pictorial signs are most
effective, as many vandals are young or non-achievers.

The Railways

As graffiti and railways seem to be inextricably linked in the public imagination, I will
now t alk about the options available to transport authorities to reduce graffiti and
vandalism on trains and railway property.
In Sydney, rail authorities are urging people on late night trains not to sit alone, but
rather to sit in a carriage – marked with a blue light – next to the guard. Some stations
have closed circuit television and emergency phones, and transit police patrol the
trains.
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A few days ago someone suggested siting police stations in the airspace over railway
stations to reduce the danger. This is a fine piece of lateral thinking and an
imaginative use of crime prevention through environmental design, but I will not hold
my breath waiting for it to happen.
Those of you who live in Sydney will be watching with interest the SRA's latest
policy of cutting out trains after midnight on many line. Though it is primarily a cost-
cutting exercise, the Government is also selling it as a way of reducing violence on
trains.
The problem with this sort of approach is that, while it may solve the problem, it is a
solution by default – an admission of defeat. Uncurbed violence on public transport
may simply impose an unofficial curfew on women. I think we have to be careful
about locking up the weak to protect them from the strong.
It seems to me that young women are most at risk in half empty trains on the far-flung
outer suburban routes, on badly-lit, unstaffed stations, and in unpatrolled station
carparks. Maybe shorter, patrolled trains, staffed stations and patrolled carparks could
have saved some of the women who have been raped and even murdered on their way
home by train at night.
Experience in other countries shows that preventing or minimising graffiti and
vandalism seems to depend on the right formula, or package, of measures. These
include police or railway police presence, electronic surveillance, quick and effective
clean-ups, education campaigns, restrictions on the weapons or tools used, and
programs and activities which are more interesting for young people than bombing
trains or hanging around railway stations making trouble.
A lot of these tactics are simple common sense, but they do cost money: installing
closed-circuit TV on very dangerous stations and guards on trains are expensive, but if
these measures cost less than the amount spent on eradicating graffiti and fixing
vandalism – running at $7 million a year in NSW alone – it has to be worth it.
I am told that the SRA has adopted a policy of getting spray-painted trains cleaned up
and back on the tracks in 12 hours, which is probably why some members of the
public think graffiti is going out of fashion. Most expert opinion holds that kids do it
mostly for the fame that comes from having their name up there on a moving train,
and that instant clean-ups take the fun out of it for graffitists and act as a disincentive.
I will be interested to see if the SRA's experience backs up the theory. It is extremely
annoying for some of the transit police, whose role is more reactive than pro-active:
from their point of view, quick clean-ups get rid of the evidence they need to nail the
offenders. Personally, I'd rather see the kids drop out of the game from sheer
frustration than end up in custody.
The bullet our legislators do not seem to be prepared to bite -though they do chew on
it from time to time – is banning or restricting the sale of spray paints and non-water
soluble marking pens. The railway police tell me banning or restricting the sale of
spray paints to the over-18s is an impossible dream because of the amount of money
involved for paint companies. They say tradesmen would be grossly disadvantaged,
and they also say it would not stop graffitists, who would find other tools. And they
 6

cite major break-ins at hardware stores to show that locking up spray paints does not
work.
I'm keeping an open mind on this one. It seems to me that concern at the cost of spray
paints in property damage – plus the cost to the environment of their massively excess
packaging – might be beginning to converge. We should have a good hard look at the
economics of it. Perhaps at the very least there should be a clean-up tax levied on
spray paint manufacturers.
As for making all marking pens water soluble, I have not read any cogent arguments
against it, so I cannot understand why it hasn't happened. I would have thought it
would be high on the priority list of all Ministers of Transport.
We have had Curtis Sliwa in Australia recently discussing setting up an antipodean
branch of the Guardian Angels, the vigilante group which patrols New York's subway
system to deter muggers. However, we have probably not got to the stage on Sydney
trains where we need that yet.

Schools

I will move onto schools, now, as I know we have some education department people
here today.
I read the NSW Public Accounts Committee's report on arson in schools and was left
with the impression that they were stating the blindingly obvious, which is not to
denigrate their work, which was extremely welcome.
The Committee found that most fires in schools were lit to hide signs of forced entry.
So although it was a relief to find we did not have bands of alienated 12-year-old
firebugs torching schools for fun, it left the problem of what they were doing when
they got into the schools.
What the committee found was that because schools belonged to e verybody, they
belonged to nobody. Nobody was taking responsibility for locking up, turning on
security lights and burglar alarms, closing windows, etc. They also found that the
NSW Education Department had dragged its heels unaccountably in installing
electronic surveillance, whereas the Victorian system had moved quickly and was
showing excellent results.
Last year in Stockport England, as a result of a County Council Working Party on
Arson, the education authority, the police, fire services and the Council's insurers
established Schoolwatch. It was a two -pronged campaign attack on vandals -
improving school security and acquainting the public with the real cost of damage to
local schools. In Schoolwatch, neighbours adopt their school buildings, as people
adopt each other in Neighbourhood Watch. I do not have any results to give you yet,
but it sounds like a good idea.
Further, harking back to our crime prevention through environmental design thrust, I
will tell you about a study done in London comparing levels of burglary in schools
with different architectural styles. One type dated from the twenties, was compact,
surrounded by other buildings, and had small grounds. The other was the more
 7

modern, open-plan schools with big grounds, situated in the suburbs, usually isolated
from housing.
To cut a long story short, the old prison-compound schools were much less susceptible
to burglary because they presented fewer opportunities. They were strongly built,
usually with high fences and not many low windows on the exterior. Being in densely
populated areas, people could see burglars trying to get in, and because the school was
compact, the live -in caretaker could see most of the school – and there was often less
equipment to steal. There has to be a lesson for public works architects there
somewhere.
The other aspect of school vandalism that needs to be emphasised is the accidental
nature of much of it – kids being kids. Kids bang doors, kids are careless, kids take
short-cuts, kids break windows. That means school buildings have to be tough, easily
maintained, and incorporate materials that can be quickly replaced if they are
damaged.
Moreover, kids who like their school are less likely to damage it. This brings up all
sorts of intangibles like the culture in t he school, the commitment of the head teacher
and the staff and the involvement of the parents, but these don't fall into the category
of situational crime prevention, so I can fudge them. I don't think school authorities
can afford to, though.
Let's try some radical thinking. If schools were in use from 7.00 a.m. until 11.00 p.m.,
with two school shifts during the day -as in Europe – and adult and continuing
education and community use at night, and if the kids were using the grounds as
playgrounds and the community using the rooms for hobbies, clubs and meetings on
the weekends, the arsonists and vandals would be hard-pressed to find an opportunity
to do their dirty work. Now I know what the Education Department will say – they all
say exactly what they s aid when I put this suggestion up when I was doing policy
work for the NSW Government several years ago – that the legal problems of liability
would be insurmountable and the insurance costs astronomical. Well, we all use other
public places like parks and streets and art galleries and museums and the State has
not gone broke yet, so maybe we are not approaching these sorts of suggestions in
perfectly good faith. I know they would require an entirely new orientation in the
thinking of educational bureaucrats, but I am basically an optimist.

Telephone Vandalism

I had the privilege last year of participating in a working party comprising State police
representatives, Telecom and the Australian Institute of Criminology looking at
telephone vandalism. The working party resulted from a reference from the 1988
Police Ministers' Council whose members were obviously alarmed at the escalating
costs of keeping public phones working – $18 million a year at last estimate.
The initiatives that came out of the working party included strategies like education
campaigns for potential vandals, alarms in some vulnerable phones, electronic
surveillance in particularly bad areas, devices reporting breakdowns so phones can be
fixed immediately, an exchange of statistics between police and Telecom and a new
 8

statistical reporting system within Telecom. As well, Telecom, police on the beat and
street crime units are co-operating more closely, and an investigation is being carried
out on siting phones near police stations.
Target hardening continues, of course, with good results reported on the new tough,
burglar-resistant Kirk safes or coinboxes, and Telecom is investigating phones which
use credit cards or tokens to prevent the vandalism which results from burglary
attempts. I notice Peter Lester is here from Telecom – perhaps he can enlighten us
later on how the campaign is going.
In Liverpool, England, for a 12-month trial period, British Telecom installed 10 public
telephones inside, and four outside police stations. They were sited in areas where
phone vandalism was rife, there were few private phones and the police station was
suitable. None of the 14 phones was vandalised, and the phones attracted many people
who would normally be intimidated by police stations.

Public Places

As a denizen of Kings Cross, mecca for Saturday night ragers, I have had an
opportunity to observe quite a bit of vandalism in public places. I recently made some
inquiries about the closure of the public toilets in Fitzroy Gardens, and was told by
South Sydney Council that vandals had ripped every fixture out of the walls, doors off
by hinges etc. and that the women's toilets had been graffitied on floors, walls and
even the ceilings -with marker pens.
Public toilets are now out of bounds for most ordinary people anyway, as they have
become favourite haunts of drug addicts and pushers. The toilets on the premises of a
major hotel in Kings Cross have been closed completely because they were too
dangerous even for an attendant.
Part of the problem with old public conveniences, the Council pointed out, was that
prudery dictated they be hidden from the view of passers-by. This now makes them
extremely vulnerable because no natural surveillance is possible. Conveniences at
cinemas and fast-food outlets on the other hand are not badly damaged, despite heavy
usage, simply because the constant crowds create round-the-clock surveillance.
I do not have the answer to this problem, but I am putting it forward as something
councils will have to think about. Perhaps relocating public toilets within view of
police stations could help.
Surveillance – in conjunction with the most vandal-proof materials affordable – seems
to be the key to preventing vandalism in public places. In the Sydney CBD, to
celebrate the Bicentenary, the Council erected elegant, French-deco looking bus
shelters with glass side panels. The heavy-duty glass in the Macquarie Street shelters
has been smashed to smithereens. Now, Macquarie Street dies at about 6.00 p.m.
when the doctors' and lawyers' chambers and government buildings close and it is
lightly used on weekends. It seems to me that mistakes like this could have been
avoided by some knowledge of the basics of crime prevention through environmental
design. In the meantime, if I were the Public Works Department architects, I would be
researching a good-looking alternative to glass in such locations.
 9

Prevention of vandalism and graffiti basically comes down to the same principles as
all crime prevention through environmental design – controlling access, fostering a
sense of ownership, using the best vandal-proof materials affordable, good
management practices, quick maintenance, and maximising natural and formal
surveillance of vulnerable sites. If these factors are considered before we build, we
may be able to cut our maintenance bills dramatically.
Perhaps a survey of vandalised and non-vandalised public property, and a comparison
of the environmental factors operating in the different cases might throw up some
valuable clues about what will or will not survive undamaged in different sorts of
locations.

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