Regional, cultural, ethical, privacy and legal aspects and influence factors report.

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© 2014 Graffolution | FP7‐SEC 608152 2

D2.2 REGIONAL, CULTURAL, ETHICAL, PRIVACY AND LEGAL ASPECTS

AND INFLUENCE FACTORS REPORT

DELIVERABLE

Number: D2.2

Title: Regional, cultural, ethical, privacy and legal aspects and influence factors

report

Lead beneficiary: UB

Work package: WP2: Graffiti vandalism research, stakeholder analysis and solution

elaboration

Dissemination level: Public (PU)

Nature: Report (R)

Due date: September 30, 2014

Submission date: September 30, 2014

Authors: Mariona Tomàs, UB

Raquel Prado Perez, UB

Marion Müller, SINE

Sebastian Kleele, SINE

Contributors: Lorraine Gamman, UAL

Paul Ekblom, UAL

Marcus Willcocks, UAL

Matthew Malpass, UAL

Bernhard Jäger, SYNYO

Gemma Galdon Clavell, ETICAS

Liliana Arroyo Moliner, ETICAS

Reviewers: Marion Müller, SINE

Peter Leitner, SYNYO

Acknowledgement: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 608152.

Disclaimer: The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the authors, and in no way represents the view of the European Commission or its services.




TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... 6

Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 7

a) In‐Depth Interviews with Stakeholders ...................................................................................... 7

b) Desk Research ............................................................................................................................ 8

1. Introduction of the countries and context of graffiti ................................................................ 9

1.1 Introduction of the country – basic data ................................................................................... 9

1.2 Structure of public transport facilities ..................................................................................... 14

1.3 History & Evolution of Graffiti .................................................................................................. 24

1.4 The magnitude of the phenomenon ........................................................................................ 30

2 Socio‐cultural aspects and influence factors .......................................................................... 37

2.1 What is “graffiti”? ..................................................................................................................... 37

2.2 Who are graffiti writers ............................................................................................................ 41

2.1.1 Origins, social background, gender, educational level ........................................................ 41

2.1.2 Individual and collective identities ...................................................................................... 44

2.3 Social impact and social perception of graffiti ......................................................................... 47

3 Regional aspects and influence factors .................................................................................. 52

3.1 Public spaces & Graffiti activity ................................................................................................ 52

3.2 Mapping Graffiti: is there a spatial logic? ................................................................................ 55

4 Ethical and Privacy aspects .................................................................................................... 59

4.1 Ethics of graffiti prevention ...................................................................................................... 59

4.2 Gathering & sharing data on graffiti writers ............................................................................ 73

5 Legal framework ................................................................................................................... 82

5.1 Study of the legal framework concerning graffiti vandalism for your country & sharing data

on graffiti writers ............................................................................................................................... 83

5.2 Link between graffiti and ASBO or incivility ............................................................................. 92




5.3 Discussion on problems of legal framework ............................................................................ 99

6 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 105

6.1 Graffiti across Europe: a comparison between countries ...................................................... 105

6.2 Final considerations on aspects and influence factors .......................................................... 110

7 References .......................................................................................................................... 111

8 Appendices ......................................................................................................................... 121

8.1 Appendix 1 .............................................................................................................................. 121

8.2 Appendix 2 .............................................................................................................................. 123




LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Number of stakeholders by categories for each country .......................................................... 8

Table 2: Population and density by country ............................................................................................ 9

Table 3: The ten most populated Austrian cities (2014) ....................................................................... 10

Table 4: The ten most populated German cities (2014) ....................................................................... 11

Table 5: The ten most populated Spanish cities (2013) ........................................................................ 12

Table 6: The ten most populated cities (2011) ..................................................................................... 13

Table 7: Train operators on franchised rail networks in UK (+ precedent sectors from British Rail) ... 22

Table 8: Data and sources in each country ........................................................................................... 30

Table 9: Graffiti vandalism complaints reported to the police ............................................................. 31

Table 10: Reported number of damages and costs from public transport services ............................. 34

Table 11: Different costs related to graffiti in the UK ........................................................................... 35

Table 12: Differences between countries’ punishments ...................................................................... 90

Table 13: Differences between some Spanish municipalities ‘punishments ........................................ 94

Table 14: Influencing factors of writing graffiti at social, cultural and regional level ......................... 110

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Overview of train and underground system in Vienna and surroundings .............................. 15

Figure 2: Number of passengers transported with buses, tramways and subway (in millions) ........... 16

Figure 3: Linked transport systems in Germany in 2003 ....................................................................... 17

Figure 4: Relationships between different actors of Madrid's public transport system ...................... 19

Figure 5: National Rail Network ............................................................................................................ 21

Figure 6: Urban Rail in the UK ............................................................................................................... 23

Figure 7: Graffiti incidents in FGC (2010‐2013) ..................................................................................... 32

Figure 8: Map showing counts of ‘legal walls’ by UK location .............................................................. 56

Figure 9: SprayCity Map ........................................................................................................................ 57

Figure 10: The FGC app for incivility reporting ...................................................................................... 76




EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This deliverable covers relevant issues regarding regional, cultural, ethical, privacy and legal aspects

of graffiti. The document is informed by the experiences of four countries: Austria, Germany, Spain

and the United Kingdom. Common patterns as well as dissimilarities are considered in order to

provide a general and comprehensive picture of the phenomenon of graffiti in these European

countries.

The first section consists of an introduction of each of the participating countries covering four main

aspects. First, it presents an overview of the population distribution and territorial division of each

country. Second, it describes the structure of public transport facilities of the participating countries,

since most of graffiti are done in public transport networks. Third, we analyse the history and

evolution of graffiti in relation to the pace of development, the way graffiti are being introduced, the

pioneers of the movement and the evolution of graffiti. Fourth, the report reflects the magnitude of

the phenomenon in each country. This overview provides both a general scope for each country and

an understanding in which social fabric the phenomenon of graffiti is embedded.

Section 2 analyses the socio‐cultural aspects and influence factors of graffiti. In the first place, we

provide the different existing definitions of graffiti. Secondly, the section provides a portrait of

graffiti writers in relation to elements such as age, educational level, social class or gender. We also

analyse the importance of graffiti in building individual and collective identities. Finally, the report

states the social impact and social perception of graffiti, since it is a social phenomenon with

different interpretations.

Section 3 covers the regional aspects and influence factors. First, it analyses the specificities of graffiti

as an urban phenomenon, providing the reasons why writers prefer urban settings. Second, the

report provides an understanding of the lack of a specific spatial logic in writing and the inexistence

of graffiti maps.

Section 4 deals with ethical and privacy aspects and influence factors. First, we analyse the ethics of

graffiti prevention, since there are some controversial aspects that need to be considered. Among

them, the report highlights the existing debates between vandalism and street art, permission and

legality, graffiti and advertising, criminalization of young people. Second, we examine several issues

regarding the gathering and sharing of data on graffiti writers, such as surveillance technologies used

for graffiti writers’ identification, the creation of databases, the collection of data and the way they

are shared and matched.

Section 5 discusses and evaluates legal aspects referred to graffiti. First, the report provides a study

of the legal framework concerning graffiti vandalism in the participating countries. Second, the

report examines the link between graffiti and anti‐social behaviour or incivility. Finally, it discusses

the existing problems of the legal framework in each of the countries.

The final section of the report summarizes the most important findings regarding regional, cultural,

ethical, privacy and legal aspects of graffiti.




METHODOLOGY

The following deliverable is based on the one hand on desk research, on the other hand on semi‐

structured interviews with stakeholders in the field of graffiti. All results and data have been

gathered in the four participating countries: Austria, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom (in

alphabetical order).

a) In‐Depth Interviews with Stakeholders

In total about 80 (20 per country) stakeholder interviews were conducted in four selected countries

(Austria, Germany, Spain and the UK). In‐depth interviews were conducted with stakeholders from

public and state authorities (at least 3), police / law enforcement (at least 3), transport operators (at

least 3) and from the social and cultural domain on graffiti (at least 3) (15 in total) as well as graffiti

writers (at least 5: one of older age, one younger writer, one female, one former writer, one with

lower economic status, one with higher economic status).

Stakeholders were chosen due to their specific knowledge or expertise about graffiti in their country.

Semi‐structured interviews were based on one commonly agreed interview guideline, used for all

stakeholders, including graffiti writers. The guideline covered the following topics:

understanding/definition of graffiti, relationship to graffiti, experiences/motifs, impact, the legal

framework, prevention strategies/measures, exchange/networking, outlook/future approaches and

needs towards graffiti. We also addressed the idea and the potential of a joint graffiti platform

provided by the Graffolution project in the examined countries (see appendix 1).

Interviews were conducted in the specific national language1. The average duration of an interview

was about 60 to 90 minutes. The interviews were recorded2, transcribed, and analysed. Analysis of

the data was done on a common coding list by all partners (see appendix 2) and in the respective

national language. Interview quotations are translated by the respective partner.

An important factor to note is that a number of graffiti writers were suspicious of the ambitions of

the Graffolution project, in Germany, Spain and the UK. A number refused interview because of the

tone of the project description, or the use, of the term ‘sprayer’3, which was considered narrow‐

minded on part of the research teams by invited interviewees. Literature sources appear to concord

with this in that they predominantly use other terms such as graffiti writer, artist, vandal, offender,

graffitist, and more.

1 In the case of Spain interviews were done in Catalan and Spanish. 2 In the case of Spain in two cases (graffiti writer and a representative of public authorities), people have not agreed in being recorded, so notes were taken instead. 3 And for this reason we are not using the term anymore in this deliverable.




code for the quotations: the first letter(s) are indicating the nature of the stakeholder: G for graffiti writers; O for transport operators; A for state/public administrations; PLE for police / law enforcement; SWC for social work/cultural projects/ civil society; E for enterprises and private companies,; the second (and third) letter is the country (E for Spain, U for UK, G for Germany and A for Austria); finally the number according to the order within the given stakeholder type.

Table 1. Number of stakeholders by categories for each country

Austria Germany Spain UK

Social work/ cultural projects / civil society (SWC)

3 4 6 3

Police/Law Enforcement (PLE)

3 3 2 3

State/local Authorities (A)

3 4 3 3

Transport Operators (O) 3 4 4 2

Graffiti Writers (G) 5 5 5 7

Enterprises/private companies (E)

3 0 3 4

b) Desk Research

Desk research included statistical data, literature review and country‐specific references, press

articles, documentaries and other audio‐visual material. As will be noted in the following sections,

press articles, blogs and internet sources have been key to produce this deliverable since little

literature has been produced yet on this issue regarding the participating countries.

It is worth mentioning the importance of blogs and Internet sources to understand the situation of

graffiti in each country, in particular the usefulness of news to track history, evolution and social

tensions around graffiti.




1. INTRODUCTION OF THE COUNTRIES AND CONTEXT OF GRAFFITI

1.1 Introduction of the country – basic data

In this section we cover introductory aspects to each of the participating countries such as

population distribution and territorial division in order to have a general scope for each and an

understanding in which social fabric is embedded the social phenomenon of Graffiti. The four

participating countries are Austria, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland (UK). All four countries are old members of the EU, being Austria the last country to

have joined the Union in 1995.

An introduction to each of these four countries is provided in this chapter, starting with population in

millions and its distribution according to the population density, which provides a general idea of the

size of the country. A comparative display is shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Population4 and density5 by country

Austria Germany Spain UK

Population (in M) (2014)

8.5 80.7 46.5 64.3

Density (inhab/km2) (2012)

102 229 93 257*

* 2010

As the numbers show Germany is the most populated country of the sample (and actually the most

populated of the EU as well). The UK is the second (and the third one in the EU) with a higher density

of inhabitants, while Spain is half populated than Germany and Austria has only 8,5 million

inhabitants but is approximately as dense as Spain.

Each country presents particularities in terms of its territorial division. The four countries are

subdivided in different numbers of regions under logics that are closely related to their historical

development. The following sections cover the different levels of government, the divisions of the

territory and the main urban agglomerations.

4 Source: Eurostat. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=tps00001&tableSelection=1&footnotes=yes&labeling=labels&plugin=1 [27.08.2014]. 5 Source: Eurostat. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tps00003&plugin=0 [27.08.2014].




AUSTRIA

Austria is a federal republic and the country is divided in nine states (called Bundesländer). The

capital and largest city of Austria is Vienna, with almost 1,7 million citizens. The following gives an

overview of the most populated cities in Austria:

Table 3: The ten most populated Austrian cities6 (2014)

City Population

Vienna 1,691,468

Graz 222,326

Linz 181,162

Salzburg 150,269

Innsbruck 112,467

Klagenfurt 90,610

Villach 58,882

Wels 57,946

Sank Polten 49,001

Dornbirn 43,013

Most of the population lives in the north‐eastern states (Vienna, Upper and Lower Austria). Actually

Vienna has the largest population on the smallest area. The difference regarding the number of

inhabitants between Vienna and Graz is impressive: the second most populated city in Austria is

more than 7 times smaller than the first one.

GERMANY

Germany is a Federal Republic. All in all Germany comprises sixteen states which are collectively

referred to as “Bundesländer”. Each state has its own state constitution and is largely autonomous in

its internal organisation. Because of differences in size and population the subdivisions of these

states vary, especially as between city states (“Stadtstaaten”) and states with larger territories

(“Flächenländer”). At a municipal level Germany is divided into districts (“Kreise”), consisting of rural

districts (301 in 2009) and urban districts (102 in 2009). Arranged by their area, the three largest

states are Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Baden‐Württemberg.

6 Source: Statistik Austria (2014): Bundesländer. http://www.statistik.at/web_de/ klassifikationen/regionale_gliederungen/bundeslaender [06.08.2014].




Referring to its agglomerations, Germany has thirteen cities with a total population of more than

500.000 and almost 80 cities with more than 100.000 citizens. Table 4 shows the ten biggest cities of

Germany in terms of population, being Berlin (the capital of the Republic) the biggest one.

Table 4: The ten most populated German cities7 (2014)

City Population

Berlin 3,400,000

Hamburg 1,700,000

Munich 1,400,000

Cologne 1,000,000

Frankfurt 700,000

Essen 588,800

Dortmund 587,600

Stuttgart 81,100

Düsseldorf 568,900

Bremen 527,900

It is noteworthy that most of the larger cities are located at the edge of the country, especially in the west and southwest where many of the agglomerations are along the Rhine.

SPAIN

Spain is a parliamentary monarchy since 1978. The State is territorially organized into three levels of

government: central, the regional tier or 17 Comunidades Autónomas (Autonomous Communities,

plus two Autonomous Cities, Ceuta and Melilla, with fewer powers than the AC) and the local tier

(formed by 50 provinces and 8113 municipalities).

The distribution of 45 million Spaniards is not equal in the territory. There exist densely populated

urban areas on the coast and in Madrid in contrast with a pattern of lower density development in

the central zones of the country. Indeed, there are thirteen cities with more than 300,000

inhabitants, whereas more than 85% of the municipalities have less than 5,000 inhabitants (data

from 2013). Table 5 shows the ten most populated cities in Spain:

7 Source: Wikipedia: Deutschland. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland [07.07.2014].




Table 5: The ten most populated Spanish cities8 (2013)

City Population

Madrid 3,207,247

Barcelona 1,611,822

Valencia 792,303

Sevilla 700,169

Zaragoza 682,004

Málaga 568,479

Murcia 438,246

Palma Mallorca 398,162

Las Palmas 383,050

Bilbao 349,356

The two main cities in Spain are Madrid (the capital) and Barcelona. As per the numbers in the table,

there is an important difference between the first two and the rest of the cities shown.

UNITED KINGDOM

The "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" known and referred to as the UK

encompasses England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Although the United Kingdom, as a

sovereign state, is a country, England, Scotland, Wales, and to a lesser degree, Northern Ireland, are

also regarded as countries, though they are not sovereign states.

The UK is divided into thirteen main regions including; Channel Islands, East Anglia (Eastern England),

East Midlands, London, Northern Ireland, North East, North West, Scotland, South East, South West,

Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire & Humberside and the Republic of Ireland. According to the Office

for National Statistics’ analysis (20129) local authorities (or equivalents) with the largest percentage

population increases, over the period 2001 to 2011, are particularly concentrated in London, the

South East, East Midlands, East England and Northern Ireland.

8 Source: own elaboration with data from INE (Statistics National Institute). http://www.ine.es [06.06.2014]. 9 Source: Office for National Statistics (2012). 2011 Census: Population Estimates for the United Kingdom, 27 March 2011. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_292378.pdf [29.08.2014].




The Office for National Statistics UK describes in its report (2013a10) urban areas as built‐up areas.

Across England and Wales there are 5,493 built‐up areas and these vary widely in terms of

population with the smallest areas having a population of just over 100, and the largest (Greater

London) having a population of over 9.7 million. In England and Wales there are four major built‐up

areas (Office for National Statistics UK, 2013a: 4). These are:

• Greater London built up area (BUA) – 9,787,400 usual residents

• Greater Manchester – 2,553,400 usual residents

• West Midlands – 2,441,000 usual residents

• West Yorkshire – 1,777,900 usual residents

There are seven large built‐up areas, which are Bristol, Leicester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Sheffield,

South Hampshire and Tyneside. Their populations range from Bristol as the smallest (508,900 usual

residents) to Liverpool (864,100 usual residents for the BUA) (Office for National Statistics UK, 2013a:

4).

Within medium areas Brighton and Hove, Bournemouth/Poole and Cardiff are the largest with over

400,000 usual residents. The majority of the medium areas (35 areas) had a population of fewer than

200,000 usual residents. Worcester has the smallest population in this group with 101,700 usual

residents (Office for National Statistics UK, 2013a: 4). It is important to note that built‐up areas cover

a larger space than regional entities. This means, for example, Greater London BUA population is

larger than Greater London regional entity. Table 6 offers a more detailed breakdown of the most

populous cities in England and Wales (with regards to regional entities).

Table 6: The ten most populated cities11 (2011)

City Population

Greater London

(regional entity)

8,173,941

Greater Manchester 2,682,528

Birmingham 1,073,045

Leeds 751,485

Sheffield 552,698

Bradford 522,452

Liverpool 466,415

Kirklees 422,458

Croydon 363,378

Cardiff 346,090

10 Source: Office for National Statistics (2013a). Characteristics of Built‐Up Areas. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_316219.pdf [29.08.2014]. 11 Office for National Statistics (2013b, January 30). Table QS102EW ‐ 2011 Census: Population density, local authorities in England and Wales. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011‐census/key‐statistics‐and‐quick‐statistics‐for‐wards‐and‐output‐areas‐in‐england‐and‐wales/rft‐qs102ew.xls [01.09.2014].




1.2 Structure of public transport facilities

As mentioned in the previous section, each of the countries participating in Graffolution has a

different profile in terms of territorial organization. Under this heading we will provide information

about the institutional configuration and competency distribution among different levels of

government regarding public transport facilities. Despite the differences among the countries in the

sample, a common trait is that public transportation is leaded to a greater or lesser extent by public

and private organisms. The best way to approach these differences is to present them separately.

Austrian public transport facilities

The public transport in Austria is legally based on the Öffentlichen Personennah‐ und

Regionalverkehrsgesetz 1999 (ÖPNRV‐G) (own translation: Public near‐transport and regional

transport law 1999). This law builds the organisational and financial basis for the whole public

transport in Austria. It was negotiated with the Austrian states, municipalities and transport

organisations and came into force in January 2000. Besides others the law regulates the transport

planning, transport fees and quality aspects (e.g. support for handicapped persons)12.

In 2013 47 railway companies existed in Austria at both national and regional levels. However, a part

of them are only operating in the area of cargo transport or infrastructure. The most influential

company regarding public transport on a national level is the ÖBB (Austrian Federal Railways)13. The

ÖBB is owned by the Republic of Austria and divided into several businesses such as passenger

transport, freight service, infrastructure among other sections. Also highly relevant for the national

public transport is the ÖBB Post Bus AG (a sub‐company of the ÖBB)14.

On a national scale the ÖBB is most important as they are by far the biggest public transport services.

On a regional level there are besides the ÖBB also further operators owned by the municipalities and

or in combination with privately held organisations (e.g. Salzburger AG)15. There are also some

privately owned railway organisations, having a market share of 12,2% of the total16. For example

since 2011 the Westbahn (a sub‐company of the Rail Holding AG) operates between Vienna and

Salzburg and has a staff of 200 persons17. In addition to the train services there are particular public

transport associations in every state.

12 Source: Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie (2013): Nahverkehr. Recht. http://www.bmvit.gv.at/verkehr/nahverkehr/recht/index.html [08.09.2014]. 13 Source: Schienen Control (2013): Jahresbericht. IhrRechtam Zug. Schienen‐Control. http://www.schienencontrol.gv.at/files/jb2013_schienen‐control_final.pdf [06.08.2014]. 14 Source: ÖBB‐PostBusGmBH (2014): Das Unternehmen ÖBB‐Postbus GmbH. http://www.postbus.at/de/Services/Unternehmen/index.jsp [08.08.2014]. 15 Source: Salzburg AG (2014): Beteiligungen und Töchhter. http://www.salzburg‐ag.at/unternehmen/beteiligungen‐toechter/ [08.09.2014]. 16 Source: Schienen Control (2013): Jahresbericht. IhrRechtam Zug. Schienen‐Control. http://www.schienencontrol.gv.at/files/jb2013_schienen‐control_final.pdf [06.08.2014]. 17 Source: Westbahn (2014): Über die Westbahn. https://westbahn.at/unternehmen/ueber‐westbahn/ [08.08.2014].




Figure 1 Overview of train and underground system in Vienna and surroundings18

The public transport service of Vienna (Wiener Linien) holds the most complex transport system in

Austria. This includes 78.5 kilometres subway, 172 kilometres tramway (sixth biggest in the world)

and bus lines with a total length of 700 kilometres. In 2013 the Wiener Linien had over 900 million

passengers – 2.5 million rides every day. The public transport in Vienna is the most preferred means

of transport (39%) in comparison to other options (car: 28%, bicycle 6%, foot walk 27%)19.

The interplay of public transport systems for Vienna is very complex as it combines bus lines, subway,

tramways, trains which are partially also supported by private companies (e.g. privately owned bus

companies). The graphic above indicates for instance just the subway and railway network as well as

special lines as the city airport train for Vienna and the surrounding areas. The diagram below shows

the number of passengers transported with buses, tramways and subway since 2002.

18 Source: By Horst Prillinger. License: Creative Commons 3.0 Österreich. http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/metro/m/largemap‐s.html [29.08.2014]. 19 Source: Wiener Linien (2014): Unternehmensprofil. http://www.wienerlinien.at/eportal2/ ep/channelView.do/pageTypeId/66528/channelId/‐47395 [07.08.2014].




Figure 2: Number of passengers transported with buses, tramways and subway (in millions) 20

German public transport facilities

As the public transport system in Germany is characterised by a large variety and complexity, the

important criteria here is to distinguish among passengers and freight transportation (that might be

of lower interest for the Graffolution project).

Furthermore the passenger service is divided into short‐distance public transport (“Öffentlicher

Personennahverkehr – ÖPNV”) – which is defined by law as urban, suburban and regional transport

with a general reach of not more than 50 kilometres or a travel time of no longer than one hour –

and long‐distance traffic which includes all kinds of transport that exceed the previous definition.

According to that definition railway or bus services can be classified either as long‐ or as short‐

distance public transport like trams or subways, depending on the routes they serve. Therefore the

ÖPNV is a central element to guarantee the mobility of the major part of the general public.

According to that, in all cases being them long or short distance, there are two major actors in the

field of public transport in Germany. On the one hand the repository (the state or the municipality)

and on the other hand the transportation company. This is aggravated by the fact that “the German

transportation companies are characterized by a very heterogeneous structure as there are

20 Source: Wien.gv.at (2014): Öffentlicher Verkehr – Statistiken. https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/verkehr‐wohnen/oeffentlich/ [08.09.2014].




municipal companies, subsidiaries of the Deutsche Bahn (DB) and a large number of private

companies from the “global player” to the small family business”21.

Furthermore, in the most states, the short‐distance public transport is organized in linked transport

systems and integrated fares. This has the advantage that all public transports of the same system

can be used with the same ticket. A negative aspect is that almost every region has its own prices

and regulations. Consequently, the short‐distance public transport system in Germany suffers from a

high level of complexity that is shown in Figure 3, which gives an overview of the large variety of

linked transport systems in Germany.

Figure 3: Linked transport systems in Germany22 in 200323

As already mentioned before, long‐distance transport service is defined in the way that it exceeds

the regulations for short‐distance services. Further regulations do not exist but it can basically be

divided into railway and bus services.

In both fields the German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) plays a central role. The Deutsche

Bahn basically is a stock corporation but in full possession of the Federal Republic of Germany and

therefore a public corporation under private law. It has more than 1.000 subsidiaries and more than

300.000 employees in 130 countries – 196.000 of them work in Germany24. Accompanied with the

transformation of the Deutsche Bahn into a – at least formally – corporation under private law in

21 Eichmann, Volker: “Nahverkehrsplanung unter neuen Rahmenbedingungen. Erfahrungen aus demTellus‐Projekt“, DeutschesInstitutfürUrbanistik, Berlin, p.2. 22 The grey regions are operated by only one single linked transport system (corresponding to the number). The white regions are operated by two or more linked transport systems. 23 Source: Breidbach, 2005. https://kobra.bibliothek.uni‐kassel.de/bitstream/urn:nbn:de:hebis:34‐200602226976/1/Ver%C3%B6ffentlichung_Diss_Breidbach.pdf [03.07.2014]. 24 Source: Deutsche Bahn (2014): “Kennzahlen 2013“. http://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/kennzahlen2013.html [03.07.2014].




1994, it has also been enacted that the DB has to give other transport companies access to its railway

system. This should enable other transport companies to establish a railroad sector and thereby

create more competition in the market. Nevertheless, in 2012 – 18 years after the reformation – the

Deutsche Bahn still had 99% market share and de facto the absolute monopoly.

The reasons why it is so hard for other companies to enter the market of long‐distance transport

services are once the high amount of investment that is necessary to buy a transport fleet. Second, in

opposite to short‐distance transport the national government does not provide any financial help

what increases the financial risk dramatically. And last but not least the DB still owns the train

stations, the railroad system and the power supplies. According to that, there is always the risk that

the Deutsche Bahn could prefer its own subsidiary instead of the competitor25.

In 2011 the German government adopted an amendment that should liberate and fundamentally

reform the long‐distance transport market as it gave the right to any company to establish a long‐

distance bus service on any route they wanted. Since the amendment became effective in 2013, the

market for long‐distance bus services is developing consequently. According to the federal

association of German bus companies, “it has to be calculated that 50‐100 medium‐sized bus

companies are planning to enter into the new market. The bus fares are expected to be about 30%

cheaper than the train fares”26.

In order to protect the short‐distance transport – that is given financial support by the states – from

the new established bus routes, long‐distance bus services are only allowed to provide routes with a

distance of more than 50 kilometres or a travel time of more than one hour between the stops. As

this limitation clearly relies on the definition of the ÖPNV, the intention of the government comes

out to liberate the long‐distance transport market on the one hand but on the other hand also to

secure its segregation from short‐distance transport27.

Spanish public transport facilities:

The Spanish political decentralization process of the 1980s involved many areas of responsibility,

including public transport. The distribution of responsibilities for public transport between the State

and the Autonomous Communities is articulated in the Spanish Constitution. On the one hand, it

grants the state exclusive jurisdiction over railways through the territory of more than one region. On

the other hand, the Constitution determines that the Autonomous Communities may assume

responsibility for railways and public transport which lie exclusively in the territory of the

Autonomous Community. In practice, we find national and regional corporations regulating public

transport, which is operated by both public and private companies.

25 Source: Bund, K. (2012): “Das letzte Monopol“, Zeit Online. http://www.zeit.de/2012/11/Bahn‐Fernverkehr [03.07.2014]. 26 As above. 27 Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2012): “Linienbusse dürfen künftig auch im Fernverkehr fahren“. http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/liberalisierung‐linienbusse‐duerfen‐kuenftig‐auch‐im‐fernverkehr‐fahren‐11890187.html [03.07.2014].




At the national level, RENFE (Spanish Network of Railway) is the state‐owned passenger and freight

rail transport operator overseen by the Ministry of Development (Fomento). RENFE operates freight

and passenger trains of the Spanish national railway infrastructure company ADIF, another state‐

owned company under the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. ADIF is

charged with the management of most of Spain’s railway infrastructure (tracks, signs and stations).

Before 2005, both companies were united; the European Union requirement to separate the natural

monopoly of infrastructure management from the competitive operations of running train services

forced the separation into two companies. RENFE manages suburban trains, long‐distance trains and

high‐speed trains.

At the regional level, we find different agencies in each Autonomous Community depending on the

structure of urban agglomerations. In some cases there are specific metropolitan and regional

agencies of transport (such is the case for Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and Seville) which

provide the services, coordinate the different operators and set the prices. These agencies cooperate

with the representatives of the Spanish State in relation to the national railway network and

infrastructures (Tomàs, 2011).

So as to get a better portrait we focus on the two main urban agglomerations: Madrid and Barcelona.

In Madrid, the public body responsible for the coordination of public transport is the Regional

Consortium of Public Transport of Madrid, created in 1986. The consortium gathers representatives

from the state, the regional government, the municipalities, public and private companies of

transport (trains, tramways, buses and subway). The Consortium is responsible for the public

transport of the whole Autonomous Community of Madrid. This consortium involves two companies

of underground, three bus companies covering different ranges and track concessions. Each of these

agents runs their own fare and tickets system. The following figure shows the different actors

involved in the public transportation system of Madrid:

Figure 4: Relationships between different actors of Madrid's public transport system28

28 Source: Comunidad Transportes de Madrid.




In Barcelona, the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) is a consortium created by the Catalan

government in 1997 to assemble the existing metropolitan and municipal bodies of public transport

services in the urban agglomeration. This comprises the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona extended

to the limits of the local rail services and other surrounding counties, including 253 municipalities and

serving 5.5 million of total 7.5 million Catalan inhabitants. The Administrative bodies making up the

consortium are the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia (51%) and local administrations (49%),

comprised of the Barcelona City Council, the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB) and the

Association of Municipalities with Urban transport services of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area

(AMTU). There is also the presence of representatives of the Central State Government (with no

vote) and non‐profit associations (as observers). The MTA has also other functions related with

mobility such as the preparation and evaluation of plans for mobility, the elaboration of reports

regarding urban mobility plans, service plans and studies for the evaluation of general mobility, and

the promotion of the culture of sustainable mobility among the public, among others.

Since January 1st 2010, as a result of the agreement between the State and the Generalitat, RENFE

suburban services in the Catalan territory are managed directly by the regional government. The

management of the national network was added to the existing Catalan network of trains

(Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya, FGC). FGC manage two metropolitan lines, one rural line,

and some buses, cable cars and aerial railways. The network of metro of Barcelona and the

neighbouring municipalities is managed by another public company: TMB (Metropolitan Transports

of Barcelona).

At all levels, each of these companies has to take care and make its own decisions and actions to

tackle graffiti in their facilities and carriages. Unlike Madrid, the consortium of Barcelona has an

integrated fare system and a single card serves for almost any mean chosen. It results in a much

more friendly system for the users.

UK public transport facilities

The UK transport system has, since the 1990’s, been made up not exclusively of public bodies but

composed of an extensive collection of public‐private partnerships. The Department for Transport

(DfT) is the UK Government ministerial department working with transport relevant actors to support

the UK transport network. DfT is supported by 21 agencies and public bodies. Following privatisation

in the 1990’s UK towns, cities and regions have each hosted their own train and bus service

operators, plus a small handful of UK cities offer either metro or tram services. The rail network

infrastructure is now managed and owned by Network Rail (previously Railtrack).

National Rail is the collaborative body now representing all Britain’s passenger train companies. The

National Rail network consists of 10,072 miles (16,209 km) in Great Britain as well as 189 route miles

(303 route km) in Northern Ireland. This network carries over 18,000 passenger trains and 1,000

http://www.ctm‐madrid.es/servlet/CambiarIdioma?xh_TIPO=1 [26.06.2014].




freight trains daily. Since 1994, the rail network of Great Britain has been connected to mainland

Europe via the Channel Tunnel.

Figure 5: National Rail Network29

29 Source: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/css/OfficialNationalRailmaplarge.pdf. [02.09. 2014].




Historically, all the UK networks were run by British Rail (BR) but between 1994 and 1997, the whole

UK system has been privatised. From 1948 to 1997 British Rail operated most of Britain’s trains and

became an independent statutory corporation in 1962 (the British Railways Board), following the

nationalisation of the previous "Big Four" UK railway companies – LNER, LMS, GWR and SR – and

subsequently oversaw the transformation of the UK rail network until its privatisation in the 1990s. In

1982, British Rail passenger services were split into three core sectors: InterCity, Network South East

and Regional Railways. Then, between 1994 and 1997, British Rail was privatised, as track and

infrastructure passed to Railtrack in 1994 (now Network Rail) and, later, passenger services were

franchised in 25 blocks to private‐sector operators. Freight services were sold outright. Overall,

ownership and operation of the network became highly fragmented, as operations were split

between more than 100 companies30. Today, there are twenty nine train operators (TOCs) of

franchised and a small handful of ‘open access’ passenger rail services in the United Kingdom. The

operators running franchised services are indicated in Table 731.

Table 7: Train operators on franchised rail networks in UK (+ precedent sectors from British Rail)

30 Source: http://www.rail.co.uk/british‐railway‐history/british‐rail/ [02.09.2014] 31 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_operating_trains_in_the_United_Kingdom [02.09.2014].




Key urban commuter rail networks are focused on the following UK cities, also represented in Figure

6:

● Belfast ‐ Belfast Suburban Rail

● Birmingham ‐ London Midland City

● Bristol ‐ Greater Bristol Metro and First Great Western

● Cardiff ‐ Valley Lines

● Edinburgh ‐ First ScotRail

● Glasgow ‐ First ScotRail

● Leeds ‐MetroTrain

● Liverpool ‐Merseyrail

● London ‐ London Underground and London Overground (with Crossrail under construction)

● Manchester ‐ Northern Rail and First TransPennine Express

Figure 6: Urban Rail in the UK32

32 Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Urban_rail_in_the_UK.jpg [02.09.2014].




Each of these network hubs consist of several railway lines connecting city centre stations of major

cities to suburbs and surrounding towns. Train services and ticketing are fully integrated with the

national rail network and are not considered separate.

Local bus services cover the whole country. Since the deregulation the majority (80% by the late

1990s) of these local bus companies has been taken over by one of the "Big Five" private transport

companies: Arriva (part of Deutsche Bahn AG), First Group, Go‐Ahead Group, National Express Group

(owners of National Express) and Stagecoach Group. In Northern Ireland coach, bus (and rail) services

remain state‐owned and are provided by Translink.

Transport for London (TfL) is responsible for the day‐to‐day to operation of the UK Capital's public

transport network, managing London's main roads and planning and building new infrastructure.

They manage London's buses, the Tube network, Docklands Light Railway, Overground and Tramlink.

They also run Barclays Cycle Hire, London River Services, Victoria Coach Station, the Emirates Air Line

and London Transport Museum. TfL report that approximately 24 million passenger journeys per day

are made across the city’s transport network. They also control 580 km of main roads and regulate

the city’s taxis and congestion charge scheme. TfL used to be known as London Transport when they

were a public entity but now they are a public‐private partnership, principally funded by several

sources.

1.3 History & Evolution of Graffiti

The origins of graffiti are rooted in Pompeii (Italy33) and have existed in varied forms all along

history34, but graffiti as understood in this project began in New York City (Castleman, 1984). There

was a subculture where Graffiti was born, due to the inequalities that minorities were living in that

moment and their needs for protest35. Graffiti was not only the act of painting a subway, it belonged

to the Hip Hop movement. This includes three elements: painting (graffiti, tags, and walls), dancing

(popping, locking, top rocks, down rocks, power moves, freezes…) and music (rap, mc´s, dj´s, etc.). It

was one of the means of expression for those social sectors as explained by this fragment of the

documentary Style Wars:

“Rapping and breaking became the prime expressions

of a new young people's subculture called ''hip‐hop.''

Graffiti is the written word.

There is the spoken word of rap music...

(rap music playing)

and then there's the acrobatic body language of dances like ''breaking”. (Style Wars, 1983) 33 Source: Ancient roots of graffiti in Pompeii http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/13/from‐ancient‐graffiti‐to‐modern‐street‐art‐roman‐walls‐tell‐the‐story‐of‐the‐city/ [24.07.2014]. 34 Source: “Misteries of medieval graffiti in England’s Churches”, BBC News England. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk‐england‐28035013 [19.07.2014]. 35 Source: “Great Art? The Graffiti of New York Subway”, BBC News Magazine. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine‐28638691 [08.08.2014].




Among those countries surveyed in Graffolution, the origin for all was the act of tagging as illustrates

this English graffiti writer:

“The original form of graffiti was obviously tagging, where people put their names on the walls to get recognition, to have a voice. It was an important movement, but now has sprung into street art and has evolved very rapidly into many forms of evolved art” (GUK4).

As graffiti was born in New York subways, the spreading channel was mass media more than direct

contact, particularly in those countries not belonging to the AngloSaxon culture. Movies and

documentaries such as “Style Wars (1983)”, but also “Wildstyle” (1983), and “Beatstreet” (1984)36

where the main source of contact with graffiti writers overseas. A significant fact is their presence in

mainstream mass media in all four countries, which can be considered the first milestone.

The UK was the first country to adopt this form of social protest in the late 70s, followed by Austria

and Germany, while in Spain it started in the early 80s. What is clear for all of them is that after

starting it has registered an important increase that lasts until today (maybe with the exception of

Germany which registered a low decrease after the Breakdance hype). In the following paragraphs is

drawn a short history for each country about the origins of graffiti.

Austria has a special case of a pioneer tagger named Kiselak that lived in between the XVIIIth and

XIXth centuries (1799‐1831) and spread his name tagged all over the country. He was a magistrate,

mountaineer and travel writer and got well known for painting or scratching his name onto

important places and objects during his travels. There are still some places (e.g. in Lower Austria)

where his tags can be found. Besides political graffiti that happened at all times (e.g. 1938 after the

invasion of German troops in Austria) there are documents from decorative graffiti from 1976 as

people protested against the demolition of an old avant‐garde theatre. Regarding the graffiti

researcher Norbert Siegel the first graffiti activist in Vienna was called BADY MINCK at this time. In

the early 90s the decay of the Yugoslav nation was strongly reflected on walls in form of graffiti.

Typical symbols (e.g. the Serbian cross) can still be found on walls in Vienna (Siegel, 2013). One of the

first known taggers of the presence was “STYLE” who was probably also member of one of the first

writer crews (called ÖBB) in 1991. Some of the old STYLE graffiti survived for more than 15 years

(Institut für Graffitiforschung, 2004).

In Germany a first appearance of graffiti can be located in the 1970s, especially in Western‐Berlin. At

this time Western‐Berlin was a centre for alternative and socio‐critical people who lived in the large

number of empty houses that characterised the cityscape. Thereby, the front of the occupied

buildings often had been sprayed with political slogans. According to that, this sort of graffiti can't be

compared with the first graffiti in New York where the prevalence of the own name should create

some kind of individuality and provide fame for the writer, whereas these first German graffiti

functioned as a political statement to underline the segregation of the squatters from the society

they criticized.

36 It is based on Style Wars of the previous year.




Maybe the most outstanding and therefore most famous place for graffiti was the Berlin Wall.

Starting with modest beginnings in the 1970s, the popularity of the location became very high from

1983 to 1986 until in 1987 there was no more free space left. Thereby the intentions to use the Wall

as a place for graffiti were very different and reached from political statements regarding the division

of Berlin to more pragmatic reasons as the wall provided plenty of space for paintings and the chance

to immortalise oneself on such a special part of history. One circumstance that encouraged this

development was that the Berlin Wall had been erected on the territory of former East Germany so

that West German executives showed only little interest of what happened to the Wall. This went so

far that artists from all over the world were invited to design the Berlin Wall – including a media

conference after they had finished their work. The first appearance of graffiti in the style of the “New

York Subway Graffiti” in Germany can be located in the years 1983/84. Furthermore the upcoming

popularity of Breakdance also supported the widespread of graffiti ‐ and thereby especially writings –

as they were a permanent part of the video clips broadcasted on TV.

In Spain, due to the existence of a dictatorship from 1939 to 1975, the phenomenon of graffiti

arrived in the mid‐1980s, later than in the rest of Europe. According to Berti (2009), the pioneers of

graffiti are to be found between 1984 and the beginning of the 1990s. In this initial period, mainly

young people discovered the existence of graffiti through films, music and books linked to the Hip‐

hop movement. At this moment, graffiti is a complement of these activities; it is not until the

beginning of the 1990s that graffiti becomes autonomous (Reyes, 2012). Breakers groups and then

graffiti writers proliferated in the late 1980s mainly in the “Golden Triangle”, formed by the cities of

Madrid, Barcelona and Alicante (Berti, 2009). In the case of the two main Spanish cities, different

groups of young people started experimenting with graffiti, creating some crews (Flecheros in

Madrid; Trepax in Barcelona), much influenced by the US and French trends. Differently, in Alicante,

a middle‐sized touristic city, the discovery of graffiti came, for the locals, thanks to the foreign graffiti

writers. Rapidly Alicante became the vanguard of graffiti in Spain and graffiti writers exchanged

experiences and knowledge among the main cities. In this first period, public television played an

important role: the only public TV channel introduced the transmission of films, shows and

documentaries related to Hip‐Hop and break‐dance movements (Reyes, 2002). They became a

cultural model for youngest Spaniards, seeking new fresh air after the long dictatorship, censure and

repression. At the institutional level, some art exhibitions started introducing some graffiti pieces

(like ARCO‐1985 in Madrid), but they were slightly accepted. To sum up, the beginnings of the graffiti

were limited to a small number of people.

In the UK graffiti came in the late 70s. Bucky Turco and Aymann Ismali, writing for the online

magazine Animal New York, explain that graffiti in the UK appeared within a few years after it started

in New York and describe: “...it was FUTURA who did the first stylized piece in Europe, specifically

under an elevated roadway in London [UK] called the Westway while on tour with the Clash. The

band commissioned him to paint backdrops live on stage while they played. The year was 1981”

(Turco and Ismali, 201337). Guardian journalist, Bob Stanley (2012), reports that one of the UK first

‘graffiti artists’ was Walter Kershaw, who was painting whole‐building mural style pieces in the

37 Source: Animal New York. http://animalnewyork.com/2013/meet‐inkie‐uk‐graffiti‐king/ [02.09.2014].




1970’s. Nancy Macdonald (2002) describes that London graffiti writers were particularly active on the

underground system in the late 80s.

A common feature is that tagging in more or less elaborated ways was the starting point. The

political contents of early graffiti are also noteworthy. A distinctive pattern followed in the UK on the

order of things: while for Spain, Austria and Germany graffiti came along with the culture of Hip hop

and breakdance, in the UK first came graffiti as a stand‐alone and afterwards the rest.

Another characteristic of this first phase is the impact of graffiti on public spaces and transport. In

Germany, in 1984 the first city train got sprayed in Munich and one year later, the first “whole train”

had been sprayed. At the same time, the first writer‐crew with two female members called “The

United Force (TUF)” formed up in Dortmund. In 1989 spraying city trains got very popular and after a

while there were hardly any trains left without graffiti. According to that, for example writers from

Dortmund had to drive to other cities in order to find trains which hadn´t been sprayed yet. And as

the writers already had their first experiences with the police, they became more and more careful.

For example the crew “Club Of Rome” sprayed plenty of “whole cars” in 1987‐1988, but never got

caught by the police and their identities are still unknown – even in the writing‐scene. The process

was similar in the UK. Nancy Macdonald (2002) quotes graffiti writer Prime who explains: “Early ‘87,

the underground system nearly got completely taken over” (Macdonald, 2002: 109). The author

further describes that by the 1990s, the transport authorities and police had little control over graffiti

activities in the UK. As Prime explains the graffiti writers were “giving it to them” (Macdonald, 2002:

110) and talks of the supremacy of the writers, particularly over the rail authorities, during this

period.

In Spain, graffiti in trains, metros and public spaces started spreading over the country later, during

the 90s. As a result, public authorities increased their strategies of prevention of graffiti by more

controls and surveillance techniques as well as more restrictive ordinances (see for instance the

Barcelona’s civic ordinance of 2005 in 4.1.). In the Austrian case, there were several convictions of

young illegal writers in the 80s. In the capital, the so called Graffiti Union reached later an agreement

with the mayor of the city to allow graffiti in specific places (SWCA1). Indeed, Vienna started

compared to other cities early to provide free walls for legal graffiti.

Despite the variety of forms and paces of development, what is clear is that in the mid 80s there was

a consolidated graffiti culture in Europe and the factory of mass media was increasing. Only Spain

took some more years. In that initial period, travelling was expensive and so, visibility and learning

came through books and magazines. Another way of distribution were the large number of graffiti

magazines that came up in that time, e.g. “Style Wars Magazine”, “Aerosol” and the “Backspin

Magazine”. Also books with pictures from all over the country and reports about the beginnings of

the Hip‐Hop and graffiti movement in New York were published. These books and magazines

functioned as a source of inspiration and motivation and provided a measure of continuity inside the

scene. Rap music videos showing graffiti were a major influence on young people during the 80s

(Matzinger, 2007: 164), as this Austrian writer notes:




“.. in the end of the 80s I started to get interested to rap music and in the rap videos in the background were basketball yards with graffiti and I thought hey, that is everywhere […] and I saw graffiti and it communicated with me, the art.” (GA2)

In the end of the 1980s, the different graffiti‐scenes from the different cities came into contact and

started to swap ideas and to visit each other. Also Hip‐Hop jams and parties provided good

possibilities for rappers, break dancers, DJs and writers to meet each other. Slowly but steadily a

nationwide scene formed out that now could also be seen as a subculture. From that time on,

German writers travelled the whole country and also abroad – especially to France – to stay in

contact with each other and to leave their marks. In the case of Barcelona, the celebration of the

Olympic Games in 1992 transformed the city in a famous touristic destination and more open to

international exchanges and experiences between graffiti writers.

First graffiti writers were pioneers and had to deal with unspecialised materials. It was very

complicated for graffiti writers to get specialised spray paint for graffiti: they had to do their best

with the materials at hand and paintings were done in a very artisanal way. At the end of the 80s

more people demanded paint especially for doing graffiti. Most stores weren’t able or willing to

provide this kind of spray paint. While initially colours were bought by particular people to resell

them to the graffiti community with the time stores were founded to sell special graffiti paint. For

instance, in Austria a representative from a company states:

“Then we got 120 spray cans that were sold out in five hours […] Within three days I had one hundred new customers that kneed in front of me to get the spray cans so that they are also able to paint nicely” (EA1).

Over the years more and more specialised graffiti paint colours and types were available which

allowed a variety of styles, forms and also reaching areas that are usually out of scope. An important

milestone is 1994, when the first Spanish specialized shop and factory on graffiti sprays, Montana

Colors, opened in Barcelona. The founder ‐ who is a chemist, affirms that he “saw the opportunity to

create specific supplies for graffiti writers, while creating a cheaper, safer and more ecological line of

products” (EE3). This enterprise is nowadays one of the leaders in the sector at an international level.

A new market niche was born with this activity.

There is a turning point in the evolution of graffiti in the 1990s. First, parallel to the massive

commercialization of Hip‐Hop, graffiti became established. In the UK, Graffolution interviewees

indicate a breaking point in the 1990s especially with Banksy through popularisation and

commercialisation of graffiti (PLEUK1, SWCUK3). In parallel some authors identify that particularly

during the 1990s multiple forms of hip hop culture, including music, fashion, graffiti and more,

started to become co‐opted into more mainstream UK popular cultures and began to appear within

advertising and commercial outputs as well as increasing adoption by different youth cultures (Willis,

2006; Turco and Ismali, 2013). This followed activities also emerging from the USA in the late 1980s,

which, as Paul Willis (2006: 100) argues, reflected a novel stage in capitalism with ‘new forms of

accumulation based on a kind of symbolic anti‐capitalism, taking its cues from the streets, stealing

semiotically from already economically dispossessed and deprived communities’.




Second, there is a change in conception of graffiti, passing from permission to considering graffiti a

problem. At the beginning it was seen as a young protest form: arrestings in the early 90s began in

Spain and Austria, where the graffiti phenomenon started to be considered as a problem affecting

society in a large sense. In Austria, for instance, in 199438 the police arrested several writers and

presented the media the confiscated spray cans. The police started a zero‐tolerance strategy against

graffiti writers. In Germany, this phenomenon started earlier. In the end of the 1980s the German

railway company “Deutsche Bahn” enhanced special units in the bigger cities to tackle and prosecute

graffiti writers. But as playing robbers and cops is at least one part of the motivation for writers, the

Deutsche Bahn was not able to prevent them from spraying trains until today.

From 2000 onwards, we assist to the raising of street art in all the countries. There is a progressive

integration of graffiti in the art market, with several expositions and galleries showing street art in

the main cities. For instance, in the UK, two of the national Museums hosted graffiti street art

exhibitions; in 2008 Street Art Exhibition at the Tate Modern in London and in 2009 with the Banksy

exhibition in Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. When questioned on changes in the London

Borough of Hackney over the past decade, interviewee AUK2 insisted there is now more street art

and less graffiti vandalism. The interviewee attributes this to both stricter enforcement and more

openness to activities that fit into the cultural (pro‐social) offers:

“I would say there’s less graffiti and more street art ... but even now you’ve still got a sort of socially and economically a very mixed population in Hackney … Half the borough is still in social housing. So, it’s not as though the whole place is gentrified and therefore, we’ve got street art instead of graffiti. I think it’s probably the case that councils like Hackney have clamped down very hard on graffiti and made it very difficult… I think there was a time when what happened on the streets wasn’t seen as being as important as it is now. And for somewhere like Hackney, 10 or 12 years ago it struggled with protecting the environment, the street environment, for a number of reasons, which I won’t go into now. But now, it prides itself on the cleanliness of its street environment and whether that’s litter or whether that’s graffiti, it takes its street environment very, very seriously and I suppose we adopt a zero tolerance model in that if you allow a little bit then that encourages others and that’s not something we want to let happen ... But there’s much more of a tolerance and an understanding of where street art fits into the cultural offer of somewhere like Hackney” (AUK2).

To conclude, both sides of graffiti have become an established phenomenon that is not expected to

disappear in the short term. Furthermore, all writers interviewed agree that it is something related to

the very human nature – being it linked to the need for self‐affirmation or to a form of expression

and talking to the world. Particularly GE5 put it in this way “if you don’t want to have graffiti, kill

those who are graffiti writers. But still, new graffiti writers will come. You can invent any prevention

you want, but people will keep painting the walls”. As graffiti crimes are decreasing in the USA – and

especially in New York where the modern graffiti has its origin – for Europe the opposite seems to be

38 Source: Bundesministerium für Inneres (2008): Sicherheitsbericht 2008. Kriminalität 2008.Vorbeugung, Aufklärung und Strafrechtspflege. http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/ XXIV/III/III_00099/imfname_173662.pdf [06.08.2014].




true, as a persistent and active scene has developed and graffiti is an ever‐present phenomenon in

the public sphere.

1.4 The magnitude of the phenomenon

The assessment of graffiti’s magnitude is difficult since data is hard to get. Moreover, usually graffiti

is considered among many other things as vandalism and petty crimes: data on graffiti is always in a

sort of hotchpotch or mixture of minor crimes. The exception is Austria, where graffiti is listed as a

category by itself. As a result, numbers are hard to compare as different kinds of facts or assumptions

are included. Solely this may be quite informative, in terms of the conception of the problem.

For the analysis of the four countries, the existing data comes mainly from criminal statistics and

public transport operators. The table below shows which sources are used for each country and

which data is included:

Table 8: Data and sources in each country

Country Source Data gathered

Austria Official statistics Complaints on graffiti reported to the police

Germany Crime statistic of the Federal Criminal Police Office “Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik (PKS)” ‐ Annual Report

Criminal damage in streets, on paths and places (non addressing graffiti particularly)

Spain Transport operators annual reports (FGC & RENFE)

Number of offences and petty crime

UK Office for National Statistics, crime statistics annual report

Amount of ASB incidents

In Austria, one of the most reliable sources to measure the extent of graffiti vandalism in the same

way over the last years is the official statistic of complaints on graffiti reported to the police. In this

case graffiti is not mixed up with other offences (e.g. vandalism) like in other countries. However, it

has to be kept in mind that the official complaints of course only present a part of the illegal graffiti

done in Austria. It can be assumed that a lot of illegal graffiti never get reported to the police

(especially private victims).

In Germany, the annually published crime statistic of the Federal Criminal Police Office “Polizeiliche

Kriminalstatistik (PKS)” is the best source to provide figures of crime. Before 2009, graffiti was not

explicitly listed in the statistic but counted in the group “criminal damage” and thereby in the

subgroup “criminal damage in streets, on paths and places”.

In the case of Spain, the only data gathered mentioning graffiti come from public transportation

authorities. We have some data coming from RENFE (Spanish Network of Railway) and FGC (Catalan

Network of Railway), as well as some information coming from TV & media. In the UK, graffiti

incidents are listed under the category of anti‐social behaviour (ASB) and reported annually by the

Office for National Statistics.




To sum up, the impact of graffiti is mainly built on perceptions of transport operators through mass

media communications more than on reliable data (see section 2.3). As data gathered below by

countries show, the low importance in terms of facts seems disproportionate in relation to the public

speech of authorities (particularly those transport operators).

In Austria, the table below shows the graffiti complaints reported to the police over the last years

(for 2013 there are no numbers available at this time). As the numbers seem to be constant over the

last years there will probably be a raise for 2013 as there was a conviction of a writer who sprayed

his tag countless all over Vienna. Because of the strong media presence of this case it is possible that

more people reported to the police that they got also victims of the same suspect. There most

probably were also other writers copying the tag. However, even the convicted offender wasn’t sure

about every documented tag when he was questioned during the trial39.

Table 9: Graffiti vandalism complaints reported to the police

Year Frequency AUSTRIA

Frequency Vienna

Cases solved % (AUSTRIA)

2009 40 5 592 2 262 22.91

2010 41 4 739 2 009 25.45

2011 42 3 847 1 734 18.85

2012 43 3 976 2 003 21.00

In the German case we have data from the Bavarian PKS, where graffiti crimes are listed separately.

It showed up that they come to 53,5% in 2001 and 55,8% in 2002 of all “criminal damage in streets,

on paths and places”. According to that, although this subgroup doesn´t give any detailed

information about the number of graffiti incidents it can be seen as an indicator for the general

development of graffiti vandalism – especially as no other figures are available (Höffler, 2008: 15).

From 1993 until 2006 the number of graffiti incidents counted in the subgroup “criminal damage in

streets, on paths and places” recorded a growth of 290,7%. Also with the just explained restrictions,

the number is monumental and gives an impression about how the figure of graffiti vandalism might

have developed during that period (Höffler, 2008: 17).

39 Source: Möseneder, Michael (2014): 14 Monate teilbedingt für einen "Puber", in derstandard. http://derstandard.at/2000003514177/14‐Monate‐teilbedingt‐fuer‐einen‐Puber [23.09.2014]. 40 Source: BundesministeriumfürInneres (2009): .Kriminalitätsbericht. Statistik und Analyse. http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/III/III_00186/imfname_200623.pdf [08.08.2014]. 41 Source: BundesministeriumfürInneres (2010): .Kriminalitätsbericht. Statistik und Analyse. 2010. http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_Service/sicherheitsber_2010/ Sicherheitsbericht_2010_Kriminalittsbericht_Statistik.pdf [08.08.2014]. 42 Source: BundesministeriumfürInneres (2011): .Kriminalitätsbericht. Statistik und Analyse. 2011. http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_Service/SB_2011/ KRIMINALITAETSBERICHT_2011.pdf [08.08.2014]. 43 Source: BundesministeriumfürInneres (2012): .Kriminalitätsbericht. Statistik und Analyse. 2012. http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_Service/SB_2012/ 2_KRIMINALITAETSBERICHT_2012.pdf [08.08.2014].

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possible when speaking to graffiti writers who have contributed to some educational programmes

with vulnerable social sectors or some organisations belonging to the civil society who actually use

graffiti linked to other elements (such as the basic values of the hip hop culture, SWC1).

In the UK, crime statistics for England and Wales show that vandalism at a whole is dropping. From

the data available it is not possible to distinguish graffiti incidents from other forms of vandalism,

criminal damage and anti‐social behaviour. Crime statistics report for England and Wales reveals that

around 2.7 million incidents of anti‐social behaviour (ASB) were recorded by the police in 2011/12

and graffiti incidents are listed under this category (Office for National Statistics, 2012: 5).

The ENCAMS Local Environmental Quality Survey of England reports give a reading for the nine

English regions. These generalised reports show that graffiti is not a major problem. This result may

be astonishing, but the survey proves that incidences are not widespread and are focused in only few

hotspots, where the problem is intense. A number of sources presenting cultural or artistic agendas

cite the UK as a global hub for graffiti alongside Germany, Australia, the USA and others (see for

example Hundertmark, 2005). According the presentation of Tim Pascoe (2011) at a Graffiti

Dialogues event the problems of graffiti vandalism is more pressing in the USA than in the UK.

Indeed, the interviewee AUK2 argues that compared to various other European cities graffiti in

London is a minor problem:

“We don’t have the street graffiti culture that you get in places like Paris and Berlin and Barcelona. It’s just not part of the street culture here in the same way that it is in other European cities. So, I actually don’t think it’s a huge problem for London.” (AUK2)

A number of sources suggest that across different UK locations over the past decade there has been

a tendency away from vandalistic graffiti, towards more and more diverse kinds of sanctioned and

unsanctioned street art or creative urban practices (Lewisohn, 2009; Andron, 2013; Bofkin, 2013;

Kognitif, 2013). By contrast, contributors to Graffiti Dialogues Network workshops, Pascoe (2011) and

Strutton (2013), insist that scratching, scrawling and tagging still make up to 90‐98% of graffiti and

only a small fraction represents ‘street art’ kinds of practice.

Costs reporting are much more common (often including cleaning, personnel, train damage). For

example an Austrian railway organisation reports EUR 1.2 million costs every year because of graffiti.

This not just includes the cleaning of wagons and stations but also personal costs, train drop outs or

moving trains from one place to another for cleaning46. In contrast, the public transport service in

Vienna (Wiener Linien) reported costs of 220.000 EUR for removing graffiti. This does not include

train dropouts and personnel. 390 cases were documented in 2012, most of them on the subway, a

smaller amount on walls, buses and tramways47.

46 Source: Schifko, H. (2014): Zwischen Kunst und Vandalismus: Street Art in Österreich. In: Profil Online.

http://www.profil.at/articles/1418/983/374826/zwischen‐kunst‐vandalismus‐street‐art‐oesterreich

[07.08.2014]. 47 Source: Nussmayr, K. (2014): FarbeimBlut. Blogbeitrag.http://blog.nussmayr.at/graffiti/ [09.08.2014].




Table 10: Reported number of damages and costs from public transport services

Year Number of damages ‐ Wiener Linien

Costs ‐ Wiener Linien

Number of damages ‐ ÖBB

Costs ‐ ÖBB

200648 374 208.166 962 898.000

200849 389 182.100 1.183 920.000

201250 390 220.000 ‐ 1.200.000

In Germany, depending on the financial damage caused by graffiti vandalism, there are no exact

numbers available but only estimations. According to the “Deutsche Städtetag” – a free association

of German cities in order to represent the interests of municipalities towards the federal government

– the damage amounts to 250 million EUR in 2011. Half of the amount is allotted to public transport

services, 30% to private property and 20% to public buildings (Czycholl, 2011). These numbers

approve that public transport facilities are a preferred target for writers.

The Deutsche Bahn as – not the only but – the biggest transport service in Germany estimates the

damage caused by graffiti at 6,6 million EUR in 2013 (7,6 million EUR in 2012). The total damage

caused by vandalism (including e.g. slashed seats, scratched windows and graffiti) came up to 30

million EUR in 2013. In the same year 57% (or 15.500) of all vandalism incidents (27.000) reported by

the Deutsche Bahn were graffiti delicts (Schumacher, 2013). Compared with the figures of the

Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik 2013, it comes up that 15,8% of all graffiti incidents reported to the

police are caused to the facilities of the Deutsche Bahn.

In Spain, acts of graffiti represent a cost of 175,000 EUR annually for the FGC. Operators insist that it

must be added the cost of the immobilization of a unit train for a day to remove the graffiti. In the

case of RENFE, the annual cost for the company would be of 12M EUR; that means 32.000 EUR per

day. News explain that, according to RENFE, in 2013 there were 41.366 square metres of graffiti in

suburban trains (one wagon is equivalent to 80 m2), meaning a cost of 7.417.164 EUR.

In the UK, significant public funds are spent internationally for cleaning up graffiti via “zero

tolerance” approaches. The UK Home Office estimated cost to fight criminal damage, which includes

graffiti at £4.1 billion/year (2006). Within the UK Keep Britain Tidy (Gamman, 2010) calculates graffiti

cleaning across the 433 local authorities in England at a cost of £32.5m/year. London alone spends

8.44 million EUR (£6.7 million) per year (Campbell, 2008). Accounts for TfL’s expenditure to combat

48 Source: Bundesministerium für Inneres (2006): Sicherheitsbericht 2006. http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIII/III/III_00114/imfname_100251.pdf [06.08.2014]. 49 Source: Bundesministerium für Inneres (2008): Sicherheitsbericht 2008. http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/III/III_00099/imfname_173662.pdf [06.08.2014]. 50 Source: Schifko, H. (2014): ZwischenKunst und Vandalismus: Street Art in Österreich. In: Profil Online. http://www.profil.at/articles/1418/983/374826/zwischen‐kunst‐vandalismus‐street‐art‐oesterreich [07.08.2014].




graffiti vary. For example, they are reported in 2006 to have spent 7.68 million EUR (£6.1 million

GBP) per year on tackling graffiti (Graffiti Dialogues Network, 2010), where as a Keep Britain Today

report indicates that they spend an estimated 3.125 million EUR (£2.5m GBP) spend per year clearing

up graffiti from trains except glass (Campbell, 2008). By contrast BTP report London Underground

(run by TfL) incurs 12.5 million EUR (£10m GBP) per year cleaning graffiti, excluding etching (BTP,

2014). In any event, such costs in turn have an impact on customer journey fares, so it is in all

interests to facilitate reduced spend on tackling graffiti, be that through reduced incidents or

reduced criminalisation linked to other innovative initiatives. Transport For London puts public

transport cleaning costs at an additional £6.1 million/ year (Association of London Government

Transport and Environment Committee, 2006). While these are significant costs, another statistic

worth consideration here is the cost of prosecuting and imprisoning graffiti writers. For example

imprisoned graffiti writers ‐ as with other prisoners in the UK – cost on average 47,401 EUR (£37,648)

(Prison Reform Trust, Ministry of Justice, 2013) per person per year (2011). Table 11 shows the

breakdown of the figures discussed here.

Table 11: Different costs related to graffiti in the UK

Estimated costs to fight criminal damage (including

graffiti)

Cost per year

UK £4.1 billion

Estimated Graffiti Cleaning Costs Cost per year

England: Across 433 local authorities £32.5m

London £6.7 million (8.44 million EUR)

Various accounts for TfL’s expenditure to combat

graffiti (different reports)

Cost per year

Tfl report 2006: Estimated costs for money spent

tackling graffiti

£6.1 million (7.68 million EUR) (2006)

Keep Britain Tidy report 2008 : Estimated cost of

clearing up graffiti from trains except glass

£2.5 million (3.125 million EUR) (2008)

BTP report 2014: Estimated cost for cleaning graffiti,

excluding etching

£10m (12.5 million EUR) (2014)

Cost of prosecuting and imprisoning graffiti writers

in the UK

Cost per year

UK £37,648 (47,401 EUR) (2013)

To conclude, the figures reported so far show the development of the phenomenon graffiti, the

damage it causes and the role of public transport services as its main victim. However, there are also

some restrictions and specificities that have to be mentioned within the interpretation.




First of all, the enormous growth of the number of incidents in the 90s and early years of the 2000s

cannot exclusively be seen as an increase of the phenomenon graffiti. Another fact that influences

this development is the intensified prosecution by the police and private security services hired by

transport services. In some cities special police units have been established in order to push back

graffiti (see section 4). This intensified focus automatically leads to an increase in the number of

recorded crimes.

Second, as the figures show, public transport facilities are a preferred target for writers. Part of this

however appears to be related to the fact that UK public transport operators are more active in

reporting incidents to the police. Accordingly, public transport services as victims of graffiti vandalism

may be slightly overrepresented in statistics, since other victims may not report so many single

(especially smaller) incidents to the police, and even less incidents in public areas are identifiable in

publicly reported crime figures and surveys, which do not include graffiti crimes in separate

categories (Höffler, 2008: 32).

Finally, it’s surprising how difficult it is to find data on graffiti writing but to what extend operators

and administrators have the accountability of its economic impact.




2 SOCIO‐CULTURAL ASPECTS AND INFLUENCE FACTORS

2.1 What is “graffiti”?

The reports show that all countries have in common the fact that a description of graffiti often

revolves around the two questions concerning the artistic value and the legality of the graffito.

Thereby, these two indicators are estimated in different ways that vary – understandably – with the

referring point of view.

Many literature sources and interviewees oscillate in different ways between their references to

‘graffiti vandalism’, ‘graffiti’ and also ‘street art’, as all having something to do with each other.

Therefore, a general definition that includes this large variety of manifestations can only be reduced

to a very general common denominator. Referring to the literature a basic definition of graffiti can be

made by its description as “…visual perceptible elements (...), that vary in their colour selection, size

and complexity and are often attached unsolicited at places that are well visible” (Steinat, 2007: 12).

A writer from Germany extended the definition as he pointed out, that the visual perceptible

elements

“…originally were letters, but in the meantime everything has totally changed and includes all sorts of things. Graphic forms, figures, characters, sceneries, stories and mostly the own name is conveyed. I guess that´s quite central. That it´s about the own name” (GG5).

According to that, a writer from the UK extends his definition by a cultural aspect:

“I would define it as an illegal mark made that is not done with permission but I would also use it as an umbrella term for an aesthetic and culture (…)” (GUK3).

This description is helpful to give at least a minimum definition of graffiti. But as already mentioned

the “artistic value” and “legality” are important aspects for the estimation of graffiti. And although

the tolerance towards graffiti may increase with its artistic value (see also 2.3), there is no objective

information about how much these kinds of graffiti have a more or less destructive, tolerable or

positive value than other graffiti, as this corresponds with the situation of the viewer, whether he or

she is in the role of the victim, the perpetrator or a viewer from the sidelines.

For example the operators of public transport services clearly understand graffiti as vandalism – an

estimation that can be identified for all researched countries. For the transport services graffiti

represents a problem because of different factors. First, the costs caused by graffiti, mainly cleaning,

repair and replacement of freight, passenger infrastructure and rolling stock. Second, the costs

through design and security measures to prevent graffiti, such as CCTV surveillance, security staff and

security fencing. Third, the dangers that actions linked to graffiti can cause to passengers and staff, as

well as delays to the railway service. Fourth, the dangers regarding the writers themselves produced




by trespassing the grounds of the transport services (such as the third rail, with risk of

electrocution)51.

“They really risk their lives and they are not aware of that” (OE1).

Therefore, public transport services mainly consider graffiti as a problem that should be eradicated

(e.g.: OE1, OE2, OE3, OE4, OG1, OUK2, OA1, OA3) and their focus clearly lies on possible preventive‐

and countermeasures to tackle and reduce graffiti on their facilities. According to that, there is no

difference made referring to the artistic quality of the graffito, whether it is an elaborated picture or

just a simple tag, although not all of the representatives of the public transport sector decline graffiti

in general or only see it negatively but have to take action against it because of their profession

(OA1, OA2, OA3).

“Well, basically, we want to prevent it. It is a phenomenon of society and we don´t arrogate to ourselves to judge if something is good or bad, done good or done bad, when it comes to us it means that illegal graffiti are attached without our support and finally we are the ones who have to remove it and that´s what we are confronted with, briefly spoken” (OG1).

As the approach of graffiti by representatives of the sector “Public Transport” in all (researched)

countries is quite similar, for the sector “Police / Law Enforcement”, some differences can be

identified. After its first appearances in the UK, graffiti was soon considered as vandalism by

authorities and certain other communities. From the Police and Law Enforcement interviewees,

PLEUK1 defines graffiti as:

“(…) the illegal painting, sketching or etching on property that people haven’t asked permission to do it on”, which covers “everything from just a little scrawl of a signature to putting up massive, big artistic pieces down to just spraying over a cut‐out screen” (PLEUK1).

At this point it is quite interesting to compare this understanding of graffiti with the official

interpretation of a representative of the German police. Also a part of the law enforcement one

might assume that his understanding of graffiti correlates with those of his colleague from the UK, as

both of them have to treat graffiti as a criminal act. But as it comes out, the definition of the German

police is more differentiated than the previous one.

“For us, graffiti has a very clear definition. Classified as graffiti are those which have a distinct recognisable artistic background ‐ that´s graffiti for us. And that´s how we estimate it. (...) Easy to explain are the sayings that you can find on any public toilets. In general that has nothing to do with graffiti that is simple scratchwork (...)” (PLEG1).

In some way these two statements from the UK and Germany represent the general public discussion

whether graffiti has to be seen as some kind of art or goes ahead with simple vandalism. On the

other hand, both in common is the position that the writers of illegal graffiti should be prosecuted

and are responsible for the damage they caused. And although the German police officer states that

he likes graffiti – while his personal understanding of graffiti corresponds with the definition of the

51 Source: “Graffiti artist dies after being electrocuted by third rail in NYC subway station” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article‐2682373/Graffiti‐artist‐electrocuted‐apparently‐touching‐rail‐NYC‐subway‐station.html [06.07.2014].




German police – this does not affect his attitude towards the need of prosecution and the denial of

illegal graffiti, as it was already the case for some representatives of the public transport sector

(PLEG1).

From the graffiti writers’ point of views, there is no universal definition of graffiti, as they all have

their different styles and ways to engage in graffiti. But there are several aspects, where the

interviewed writers from all countries agree with.

At first, for the writers, graffiti is more than a picture or a name on a wall. They describe graffiti as a /

an:

∙ “social phenomenon” (GE1)

∙ “addiction” (GE1, GE2)

∙ platform for self‐expression (GUK1, GUK4, GG2)

∙ life‐style and mentality that surpasses the practice of writing (GUK1, GUK3, GUK5, GE2, GE4,

GG2)

∙ way to get recognition and to have a voice via a simple message “I was here” (particular to

tags) (GUK3, GUK4, GG5, GA2, GA3)

∙ risky game, an Adrenaline rush and excitement (GUK1, GUK2, GE3, GG4, GA1, GA2)

∙ as something that happens outside in the streets (GA3, GG5).

A second important aspect for the writers is origination process – especially for the illegal form of

graffiti. The more elaborated the picture is tended to be and the more outstanding the place for the

graffiti is, the higher is also the effort and the need for detailed planning. Beside the making of a

draft and the choosing (and often observing) of a special place, there are plenty of questions that

have to be cleared up in the forefront.

“Or when I want to paint a wall, I have to consider how big it is? How much paint do I need? Do I need a ladder? Do I need someone else who is with me? Do I have to go there by car? Can I also go there by underground? And so on and on“ (GG5).

Considering this effort of organisation spraying a graffito can rather be seen as a longer‐term project

than as spontaneous action and therefore writers often combine a big sense of achievement with a

successful attached graffiti.

They also agree that painting trains implies another style of graffiti compared to painting on a wall,

because the circumstances only allow to spray a less elaborated graffiti in order short time, as the

danger of getting caught is higher (GE1, GE2, GG5). Nevertheless, the writers agree that they have an

extraordinary reward when achieving graffiti on a train and that the excitement of painting a train

can’t be compared to another kind of graffiti (GE2).

Referring to the legality of graffiti, it seems that most of the writers don't deny legal forms but see

the illegal graffiti as the “original” one (GUK3), as the emotional part of illegal painting is not

replaceable ‐ especially for such extreme situations like painting a train.




“(…) it´s a bit the sense of graffiti that people have strong feelings about it. (...) Or for me it´s a basic function of graffiti, that it´s illegal and that it wasn't their wish to have it on their house or their train, but that´s a part of it (...)” (SWCG2 – also a former member of the graffiti scene).

Furthermore there is no general consensus whether graffiti are a form of art or if also destructive

elements are part of the phenomenon. For some interviewed writers graffiti is nothing that has only

a vandalising function (GG1, GA2, GA3), whereas for other involved persons this controversy is a

central element that defines graffiti and therefore also includes “scratchwork in a dark corner” that

can be perceived as ugly and bad looking (SWCG2). On the other hand also “street art” with its

complex installations, sculptures, stencils etc., has its roots in graffiti and that´s why a strict

segregation not always seems to make sense (GUK1, AG3, GG5).

And although the lines between graffiti and street art are blurred (EUK2, EUK4, OUK2, GUK1) both

are estimated in a different way by the general public (see also 2.3). A writer from the UK explains

that ‘graffiti’ carries negative connotations and will always be associated with vandalism while street

art has came to represent something more positive (GUK1). For that reason a lot of graffiti writers

would class themselves as street artists to avoid negative associations (GUK1, GUK5).

According to the personal experience of an interviewee the slide from the acknowledgment of graffiti

as pure vandalism to street art started with Banksy and is also linked to his motives:

“Obviously, his [Banksy’s works] are particularly intelligent, message giving images but that said, there’s a big difference between Banksy’s unauthorised art and even wild‐style or throw‐ups that graffiti taggers call art” (OUK2).

However, Banksy is a controversial character. Some graffiti writers do not consider him as an

authentic writer but someone who wants to be deviant inside the marketing system of art, which is

getting rid of his artworks52.

Beside the question when something can be considered as art, the different valuation of graffiti and

street art also leads to some sort of discrimination, as an example from Barcelona shows. Here, this

dual perspective leads to the situation that “normal” graffiti like tags are persecuted, while on the

other hand the more tolerated street art is promoted (AE1). This leads to a double situation that on

the one hand art in public space (from murals to installations and urban interventions) is encouraged

along with Montana (the first Spanish specialized shop and factory on graffiti sprays) and some bank

institutions (Benvenuty, 2014). While on the other hand, a restrictive ordinance has been deployed in

2005 in Barcelona that says that a graffiti writer needs the permission of the owner as well as the

City´s hall authorization if he wants to spray an object legally (GE4). Accompanied by this ordinance,

controls and surveillance techniques have been increased.

52 Source: “Graffiti Artists Turn on Banksy: The Rise of Art Hate”, The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/06/graffiti‐artists‐turn‐on‐banksy‐the‐rise‐of‐art‐hate.html, [08.06.2014].




This example shows that – although denied by many of the writers – a strict separation between

graffiti and street art can be used as an instrument to tackle unwanted graffiti while at the same time

support those forms of graffiti that are more likely and could also be used as a sort of attraction.

2.2 Who are graffiti writers

2.1.1 Origins, social background, gender, educational level

All in all, the graffiti scene can be described as very heterogeneous as the reasons for the evolution

of the graffiti phenomenon in Europe is not comparable with the circumstances in the ghettos of

New York and therefore the writers in Europe have the distinction of having a widespread socio‐

demographic background. And it´s this large variety that is described by the writers as a circumstance

that makes the graffiti scene so attractive as it provides the possibility to come in contact with

persons they wouldn’t meet in their normal daily life, but have found a way here to meet each other

at eye level and without any prejudices (GG2). On the one hand it is possible to identify several

regularities, but on the other hand there are also several differences especially between the

researched countries.

All in all, graffiti writers can be found in almost every stage of life, from young teenagers or even

children to grown adults. Nevertheless – and this have all researched countries in common – the

majority of the writers is rather young so that the graffiti scene could also – but not exclusively ‐ be

described as a youth‐culture (e.g. AA1, AA2, PLEA1, SWCA1, EE3, OG1). Of course, the definition of

youth is quite flexible, but also former studies done on graffiti showed that an average age would be

17 years (Stafford and Pettersson, 2004; Wilson and Healey, 1987). In opposite to that suggested a

representative of the Transport sector from the UK that the writers encountered by UK transport

authorities are typically aged no less than about 21, or 22 years (OUK1) – but this higher estimation

might also be caused to the circumstances that normally the writers don´t start with spraying trains

but begin with easier targets.

Referring to the age when the writers start to engage in graffiti, the indications vary between the

separate countries, although the differences are not too big. For the UK it is stated that graffiti

writing is generally taken up by young people in their teens and twenties (GUK2, GUK4), whereas

Austrian interviewed writers pointed out that they started to get interested in graffiti around the age

of 14‐16. (GA1, GA2, GA3) and writers in Spain generally take up their activities at the age of 13 till

18. For Germany the numbers show that at the age of 12 the number of the graffiti writers rises

while having its climax for the group of the 14 till 16 years old (Höffler, 2008: 209).

Furthermore the numbers of this statistic that gives an overview over the age structure of suspects

for graffiti vandalism in Bavaria in 2005 is a good example for a phenomenon that could be observed

for all the researched countries. As it came out, there is a kind of typical biography for the

development of a writer and his attitude towards graffiti, which is closely related to his personal

development and his changing position in society during that time. The statistic from Bavaria shows

that at the age of 12 the percentage of all graffiti writers jumps from 4,2% to 11,6%. Furthermore




65,4% of all writers are between 14 and 21 years old. After that period, the numbers are decreasing

clearly what leads to the conclusion that with the entering of adult life also the engagement in illegal

graffiti comes to an end for many of the writers.

The assumption that the limited period in which most of the writers take an active part in graffiti is

also traceable to their changing position in society during that time is also confirmed by a

representative of the Public Transport sector from Germany:

“Well, often it starts with smaller scratchworks, tentative steps, first drawings, that starts maybe at an age of 12, and then it becomes more (...) and that you´re really becoming a part of the scene, that´s around the age of 14. And for many of them, when they are 20 years old, when they are up to start a job training, start their studies or have to earn their own money and there is also – banal spoken – a certain age of criminal responsibility it starts to come to an end for most of them or they start to do it legally” (OG1).

Also graffiti writers from the UK confirmed that the relationship towards graffiti can´t be seen as

something static and that the personal development plays an important role, stressing that many

writers go through ‘rites of passage’ to change or develop their activities in some way or other, over

years or even decades. Some also refer to this as the ‘graffiti career’ or ‘criminal career’ (GUK1,

GUK2, GUK3).

So beside the teenagers and pre adults, there is also a hard core of older writers that is firmly

established in the graffiti scene. Along with their experience mostly goes a more professional and

sometimes even work‐related relationship towards graffiti. Variants between age groups, or more

importantly graffiti stages of practice or generations, appear to include material style or form,

development of practice in terms of approach, avoiding being caught (as relevant), and levels of

social connection among peers. But it is also mentioned that a rising age does not always mean that

the artistic aspiration is increasing as some just fill trains and walls in a standardized process in order

to earn fame (PLEG1, GG1, GUK2, GUK4).

Nevertheless many of the “old‐stagers” are highly respected in the graffiti scene, what might be one

aspect for them not to quit their engagement. Furthermore they often draw their attention to the

legal forms of graffiti and engage in the scene by publishing e.g. magazines or realising workshops in

which they show younger writers how and where they are able to spray graffiti in a legal way (AG3,

GUK3). For example in the project “Free walls” in the City of Barcelona, where owners and graffiti

writers made an agreement so that they can write with permission on specified walls and public

spaces, a third of participants were between 23 and 27 years old and 72% of them were older than

23 years (Rebobinart, 2014).

Referring to the gender of the writers, there is a general agreement in all researched countries, that

the large majority of them are male (e.g.: GA3, PLEG1, GG1, GG4, OG, OUK1, OUK1, GE2). One reason

for this imbalance might be that it seems that females are generally less attracted to illegal activities

than males are. For example in 2002, 88,6% of all suspects for criminal damage in Germany in 2002

were male while only 11,4% were female. Furthermore it is reported that in legal projects (e.g. “Free




walls”) the share of female writers is higher (AUK1) than it is for the illegal part of the graffiti scene –

although for the illegal scene are no detailed numbers available, of course.

The question if there is a general discrimination of women in the graffiti scene can’t be answered in

general. In Spain for instance it has been impossible to get an interview with a female writer. From

the point of view of male writers, GE2 argues:

“I only know two or three girls who paint and they are foreigners (...). I have painted with three girls in my life, compared to 150 boys. (...) Imagine in trains, you need to run fast, and physically it is not the same (...) Boys paint better than girls” (GE2).

And also a female writer from Austria pointed out that it is hard for a woman to enter the scene and

to be accepted by the males. In addition it was mentioned that there also appeared aggressive

reactions to works of females only because of the fact that it was done by a woman or a girl but not

because of the skills or other characteristics (e.g. words like “whore” painted on graffiti of a female

writer). Such circumstances may of course discourage female writers early in their writer “career”

(GA3).

On the other hand none of the interviewees from Germany reported about any discrimination of

females in the graffiti scene, but it was pointed out that those women who engage in graffiti were in

no way inferior to their male colleagues and also would have the chance to become a highly

respected member of the scene (PLEG1, OG1, SWCG2).

“There are also very successful women. There is one who has the whole scene [of her city (S.K.)] under control and who has a lot to say. (...) She is an absolute authority” (SWCG2).

A female writer summarises the reasons why from her point of view only a few girls and women are

attracted to – especially illegal – graffiti writing as a mixture of the points mentioned above:

“… you really have to stand a lot, besides the male affectation, it is really rough, you get dirty, climbing scaffolds at high altitudes and always in work cloths, I think this is not what most girls like” (GA3).

Referring to the social background of the writers, a general classification seems to be difficult as

graffiti writers belong to every social class, although it is possible to identify focuses. In Spain, it

seems that those dedicated to graffiti are from poorer and middle‐classes:

“I don’t know rich people who paint. (...) Graffiti emerge in low‐class neighbourhoods, middle‐class, not more. There are some writers who are not poor; I know some of them who are wealthy, because they sell graffiti” (GE1).

In Germany the majority of the writers cannot be located to the under‐ but to the middle‐ and upper

class (SWCG2, PLEG1). The assumption that most of the German writers don´t belong to the “social

offside” might be confirmed by the fact that most of them quit their illegal activities at an age when

they are up to plan their future and to start a career.




For the other countries, there are no special focuses, as the interviewees generally emphasized the

wide range of backgrounds, from poorer kids (SWCUK3) with only a lower educational level (EA3) to

students (OUK1) who carried on or even started writing graffiti during their time at university (GUK1).

“I’ve met people, they come in [the shop] like business man with embroidered monograms on their shirt, briefcase and cans inside” (EA1).

Referring to the ethnic background, there is no information that immigrants play an outstanding role

in the graffiti scene – according to their share of the total population. For example for a writer in the

UK graffiti seems to be a “white crime” (GUK2).

Basically graffiti can be seen as a subculture, but as one that is entangled with others, as many of the

graffiti writers can also be allocated to other subcultures. One important is for example the Hip‐Hop

Scene (GG4, GA1, GA2, SWCA1). Graffiti competitions or exhibitions often also include performances

of Hip‐Hop artists while on the other hand Hip‐Hop Jams are often also a meeting point for graffiti

writers. Furthermore there are similar elements in both subcultures like the so called “battle” where

two persons or crews compete for fame.

Another form of subculture where graffiti play a more or less important role is the soccer fan‐culture.

In contrast with the Hip‐Hop scene, where graffiti are a way of self‐expression and creative

competition, soccer fans use graffiti in order to mark their territory. In general the graffiti are simple

tags with the name of the fan club, the soccer team they support or also (often offensive) messages

for other soccer teams (PLEA2, SWCG2, SWCA4).

2.1.2 Individual and collective identities

As already described in 2.1, interpretations on graffiti vary with the specific point of view. As for the

writers, graffiti is for example a “social phenomenon” (GE1), a “lifestyle” (GE2, GE4, GUK3), an

“addiction” (GE1, GE2), “a risky game and a collective work” (GE3, GUK1, GUK2). In other words:

painting graffiti is larger than the simple fact of painting, it belongs to a culture (GE1, GUK1, GUK4). It

is furthermore remarkable that many of the interviewed writers emphasize how important graffiti is

or was for their life and that it is (was) an inherent part of their daily life (GG2, GG5, GG1, GG4),

although it may have become more secondary for some when growing up.

As described in the following, graffiti (often) plays an outstanding role in the process of creating

identity, both individually and collectively. For the writers, graffiti is understood both as an individual

and group activity in terms of appearance, spaces, time of dedication, reasons, and commitment to a

broader subculture.

At first and from an individual point of view, graffiti writers and stakeholders agree that graffiti has a

strong egocentric perspective or even narcissist characteristic (PLEA2, OA3), as the writers focus

mainly on their own intentions and motivations when they spray (GE1, GE4, GA3). Also important is




the aspect of self‐affirmation (PLE1) and to immortalize their work and themselves (GUK3).

Therefore, the taken photo of a sprayed graffiti plays a central role:

“If you don’t have a picture of your graffiti you have not existed” (GE1).

And although there are a couple of writers who do graffiti only for their own, it is stressed that the

egocentric perspective can´t be seen as the only one, as the writers describe graffiti not only as a way

of self‐affirmation but also as a way to get in contact with and to be recognized by their environment

– in a positive as well as in a negative way (GUK1, GG2). According to this, graffiti on the one hand

has the function to be identity‐establishing (GUK3) as it gives the actors the possibility to identify

themselves as graffiti writers while on the other hand it offers them the medium to let the public

know about their identity and to enforce their place in the public sphere. And choosing this radical

form of communication could also be seen as an indicator for their urgent necessity of attention.

“…and he just wants that somebody recognizes him, and therefore he is kicking somebody in the shin, that is also the easiest way that somebody listens to you. If I just gently stroke somebody´s back he only turns around and says “Thank you”. So, in general that is graffiti for me” (GG2).

But it is important to point out that their relationship towards graffiti and therefore also their self‐

understanding as a writer can´t be seen as something static but changes over time (GA1). The

interviews reveal that the evolution and progression of a graffiti writers practice is acknowledged in

some cases as a career and depending on the perspective as an “artistic career” (GUK1, GUK2, GUK3)

or a “criminal career” (OUK1). In these instances whether actors are referring to a ‘career’ positively

or negatively, it shows that some graffiti writers are dedicated and motivated to embark on a journey

of learning and development be that legal or illegal. But as already described in 2.2.1 the majority of

the writers quits their illegal activities when they´re entering adult life or at least turn to legal forms.

“Somehow you´re not only that cool little boy with the marker in his hand, who wants to do something and who wants to communicate, to talk, to express himself and especially to live this kind of feeling in some way. At some point it simply became another feeling, a grown one, a staid one” (GG2).

Out of this changed feeling can develop a simple rejection of graffiti or also an engagement in other

fields of the phenomenon like doing commissioned work, publishing or writing for a scene magazine,

providing workshops, etc. so that the changed attitude towards illegal graffiti does not automatically

mean the loss of the identity as a part of the graffiti scene (GUK1, GUK4), although some might be

“less obsessed with graffiti” (GE1, GE2).

Next to its self‐affirming and identity‐establishing function, graffiti also provides the possibility to

become a part of an “exclusive” community – especially for those who see graffiti as a way of life and

mentality rather than just a practice (GUK1, GUK4).

Also the literature emphasizes the importance of the group for writers and in general for young

people. Especially youth cultures and subcultures play an important role for their socialisation, their

identity formation and their searching for their place in society. Thereby the group has the function




that it satisfies the paradoxical need for affiliation and differentiation: “youth culture provides “the

possibility to self‐express and to dissociate oneself from society while at the same time being backed

up by and affiliated within a group of like‐minded people (...).” (Steinat, 2007: 24) one probably

wouldn´t have met without the community defining element – in this case graffiti (GG2).

Furthermore these groups provide the space for youths to test and learn different roles, values and

norms as for example in the graffiti scene to respect the graffiti of other writers or not to spray

sensitive places. They reflect the values of a society and probably change or deny them. “Therefore, a

framework like the graffiti scene can be described as important for the identity formation of the

youths and as a central factor for their socialisation (...)” (Steinat, 2007: 23).

As the feeling of being a part of a community is an aspect that makes subcultures so attractive for

teenagers in general, this is obviously also the case for graffiti (SWCG2) where especially the aspect

of illegality requires a high level of reliability and trust, especially for the case that a member of the

group gets caught by the police.

“And apart from that, solidarity, I mean that binds together of course, when you´re doing somewhere something illegal with somebody else. Then you know, ok, the other one has to rely on me, that I don´t say anything about him in case we get caught. And I have to rely on him. That binds together in some way” (GG4).

Nevertheless, in some cases caught writers divulge the identity of other perpetrators to minimise

their punishment (EA3). But as reliability is an important factor, this is a no‐go in the graffiti scene

and acting against it might create strong negative reactions to such persons. How these reactions

from the scene look like in detail couldn´t be revealed by the interviews.

Beside the sense of being part of a community, the affiliation in groups also has another more

practical reason. As bigger projects like a “whole train” (spraying a whole train waggon) can hardly be

done by one single person, the cooperation of several writers is necessary in order to share the work

and to reduce the needed time and therefore the risk of getting caught. Moreover, spraying in a

group is essential for questions of safety, especially when painting trains or metros:

“You can’t go alone to paint a metro. Imagine that you have a problem. We are talking about tunnels, it is not a joke. You can fall down, you can slip with a rock, been hit... and then what happens? There is no coverage, nothing, nobody knows you are there. It is very dangerous (...). Going alone is reckless. Group is important; they look after you when you paint” (GE1).

For these reasons and surely also because of the fun working together with other graffiti writers

(EA3), they often organize themselves in smaller local groups, the so called “crews”. These are often

characterized by a hierarchal organization, fixed meeting points and also competing with other

crews. And although the crew is often described as a “second family”, the membership is often

limited in time and can´t be compared to the often lifelong membership in a street gang (Höffler,

2008: 11).




Although the local community is very important for the graffiti writers, it is not the only peer group

as the international exchange is an important part of the graffiti scene. Some writers reported that

when they were younger and started to get interested in graffiti, they exchanged photos by post with

people from other countries (GA2). And also travelling to other cities and countries to meet people

and crews is a relevant part of the graffiti culture (GA1, GA2, EA3).

As already mentioned above, the self‐understanding of many writers implies that they see graffiti as

a way to communicate with and in public and therefore as similar to the advertisement that is

located in the public sphere, what gives them some sort of justification for their doing. They see

graffiti as a non‐capitalistic alternative to advertisement and as a way to share their own thoughts

and feelings. It was further stated that people don´t have the option not to see advertisement, so

why should they have the option not to see graffiti. Because of this graffiti should be allowed as a

free form of public expression of individuals (GA5, EA1, EA3).

“Nobody asks me if I’m ok with it [advertisement], I see graffiti as a kind of opinion. Everybody should be allowed to express his opinion in form of graffiti” (GA5).

“Coke pays a lot of money to have some seats with their logos. Graffiti writers do their own advertisement. For free, illegally. And of course brands do not like that, because they have paid money to get their logos. (…) I have to stand all the advertisement, but have I signed an agreement on that? I am obliged. So I am going to put my name 800.000 times” (GE1).

For a German writer it is also only reasonable that next to all the brands, he also wants to have his

logo to be a part of the public sphere (GG2). However, many of the stakeholders differ in this point of

view, as they take for granted that advertisement has “a moral right” to be present in the public

sphere as it has an economic benefit for the whole society while graffiti has not.

2.3 Social impact and social perception of graffiti

First of all it has to be mentioned that for the most researched countries there was no structured

data found that gives detailed information about the social impact or the social perception of graffiti,

so that most of the information were gathered from the interviews. Often there are only statistics

about complaints reported to the police or damage costs. For the UK the “Crime in England and

Wales” published by the Office of National Statistics, offers information about the “Trends in anti‐

social behaviour indicators” such as the perceived “Vandalism, graffiti and other deliberate damage

to property”.

All in all it has to be mentioned – and in general this is all researched countries in common ‐ that how

the social impact and social perception of graffiti is estimated often depends on the referring point of

view as well as the quality and quantity of the attached graffiti and its integration in the surrounding

area.

As already mentioned in chapter 2.1 for Public Transport Operators graffiti is definitely negative

connoted, as they see it as a problem that should be eradicated (e.g.: OE1, OE2, OE3, OE4, OG1,




OUK2, OA1, OA3). Therefore they also see the social impact as a negative one, as – especially from

their point of view – graffiti put the society to expense and are a risk for the public safety. Beside the

costs for cleaning and replacement works as well as for security and preventive measures, especially

overpainted signs, e.g. such that show breaking distances or give safety advices (OA3) are a critical

factor.

Also public administrations and law enforcement representatives showed a basically negative

attitude towards graffiti in the interviews, as they also have to deal with damage of property,

defacement of public and private places and safety problems. Nevertheless it is important to

mention that these are their points of view as professionals but not necessarily their personal views

(compare 2.1).

It is not surprising that the writers estimate the value that graffiti has for a society much higher. For

many of them graffiti is a clear improvement for the respective area (e.g: GA1, GA2, GUK3, GUK4,

GG4). And as writers from Austria pointed out, graffiti could also function as a mirror for the society.

It can deliver quick feedback regarding current themes and feelings in the society. As an example is

mentioned the last war in Iraq, where only a few days after the beginning the first graffiti were found

that referred to it (GA2). It is further mentioned that graffiti are an indicator for freedom, as areas

that are free of graffiti could be perceived as over‐controlled like in totalitarian regimes (GA2).

On the other hand, not all of the interviewed writers insist that graffiti only has a positive aspect.

Some of them can understand that some people might feel disturbed by graffiti or have problems

dealing with graffiti (GA2, GG2, GG1). Also the impact on society is seen critically:

“…anyhow, I don´t think that society profits from graffiti in the way that it is happening now, with spray can and marker and so on. That´s nonsense. Well I think, if anybody says we make these evil grey walls colourful and stuff like that, that’s nonsense. Nobody gets anything out of that. Then you can also talk about a beautiful grey wall” (GG1).

Beside the respective point of view, the interviewees from all researched countries agree that the

qualitative value of a graffito is essential for its estimation by the general public. Especially artistic

and elaborated designs are accepted much better (e.g.: SWCE3, AE3, AE1, AA2, SWCA1) than the

common tag or throw up which seem to be – at least at a first glance – of only little artistic value and

are often interpreted as public defacement (AA2, SWCA1). Also protest graffiti are often less

accepted (AE2).

“Well, if there is painted a sweet pig, then they think it´s super‐duper. Because then it´s a picture they are able to make a use of, also when it´s colourful and fancy (...) but about any tag in the streets they think it sucks, of course” (GG5).

Beside the favourable sight of the artistic characters and pieces, there are at least two more reasons

why they are much more accepted than just the writing of a name. A first important fact is that the

viewer always wants to be able to understand what he sees. He wants to be able to identify the

motive and to comprehend the message of the picture. But when it comes to tags it´s often hard to




make out what´s standing there and when it´s possible so far, the names and abbreviations often

don´t make any sense for the viewer (SWCG2, GG5, GG4).

A second reason is that many of the people – especially those who are not into graffiti writing – don´t

take any note of the creative and technical process that stands behind a tag or writing and that is

responsible for the letters to look the way they do (EA3, GA2, SWCUK3, GUK3).

“But when it´s up to writings ‐ and that´s what makes the heart of graffiti for me, the involvement with the writing and all that goes with it ‐ that can´t be estimated by the people that easy. And then, it´s always the same, they can´t read It and they can´t understand how much work is behind it and what a thinking process you have to work through when you take a word and try to put it on a wall in a specific style” (GG4).

“To the normal viewer, graffiti is often perceived as quite ugly and unattractive. I remember thinking it was ugly when I first started some of the tagging (…). But it is not and when you see the subtle differences, hand style and flicks of letters, you start to see the beauty of it” (SWCUK3).

In order to provide a better understanding for the meaning behind tags, a writer from the UK

suggests that they can also be seen as a “record of the movement” and a work of calligraphy. He

describes tags as a secret language, which “manifests itself in these tangled scribbles, that’s what

they look like for the most part to people” (GUK3). Reading the walls means to him learning about

different people who wrote on those walls, their backgrounds and whether they are connected or

not. What the interviewee describes is a sense of community and history for a particular time and

place (GUK3).

Giving an outlook how the acceptance of graffiti might develop in the future seems not to be

possible. Nevertheless the estimation of an interviewee from the UK seems to summarize the actual

status quite well and may also be valid for the other researched countries, as he states that graffiti

has changed from something that was “probably universally hated” to something that is now “often

welcomed”, as long as it is “deemed to be artistic” (AUK2).

But at this point it has to be mentioned, that according to a research launched in Germany, the

artistic value of a graffito has no impact on its illegal attachment. Questioning if a graffito that is

perceived as appealing is still seen as illegal, the survey compared the indicators “aesthetic

perception” and “demand for prosecution” based on interviews including pictures of graffiti.

According to the results, it can be stated that the quality of a graffito is no justification for its

illegality, although it might have a positive effect on the cityscape. This can be understood as some

sort of dissonance between the institutionalized standards and the subjective perception (Goecke

and Heise, 2009: 99‐100).

Next to the perception of graffiti another important question is how the existence of graffiti

influences the area in which it is attached. A prominent – although not uncontroversial – approach is

the “Broken Window Theory” by James Wilson and George Kelling. Compared with the thesis of the

“Broken Window Theory”, especially referring to the social impact of graffiti, the opinions of the




interviewees vary again, whereas there seems to be one point of agreement. As the theory says that

one broken window entails another, this effect can be confirmed for graffiti. At least the German

writers explain that the inhibition level to spray a wall degreases in case that there has already been

attached a graffiti as they don´t spray a clean and untouched wall but only add something to a wall

that has been sprayed anyway (GG5, GG4). According to this it seems only logical – and maybe still

the best practise – that public transport operators try to remove graffiti immediately after they have

been detected, in order to prevent some kind of dam break and not to be a victim of graffiti again

(e.g. PLEG1, OA1, OA2, OA3).

Regarding the question if graffiti can lead to a feeling of insecurity and furthermore be responsible

for the decline of a whole borough there is no general common sense. State and local authorities

from Spain mention the complaints they receive from users: people ask them to remove the graffiti

immediately because they think that the care of stations is neglected, causing a bad perception of

the service. A representative from private companies describes painted buses as “coming from

Bronx, from lower‐class, abandoned” (EE1). As a representative from civil society explains, “places

painted with graffiti create a feeling of insecurity” (SWCE1). This view is often taken, as the central

argument is that the presence of graffiti is understood as a lack of control and therefore as an

indicator for insufficient security.

An interviewee from the German Transport sector also points out that one aspect that is mentioned

in their regular survey about the costumers´ sense of security, is that graffiti gives some passengers a

feeling of insecurity (OG1). (But it has to be mentioned here, that the interviewee gives no detailed

information about how these studies are conducted neither what the exact results are). Further an

interviewee from Austria states:

“…most of it is scribbling, tags, where whole districts are strongly affected and you can see that where lots of scribbling is, there it is very dirty, more garbage and so on. Unconsciously you get the feeling that you feel uncomfortable, not so safe there” (PLEA2).

On the other hand a representative of the writers couldn’t understand that graffiti might have such

an impact on the perceived security for example of underground passengers. He mentions that in

other cities almost all underground trains are sprayed with graffiti, while the underground system

would still be in good working order. For him the Broken Window Theory implements “real

destruction” like slashed seats or the so called broken window (GG2).

Another writer describes a similar point of view. According to him, graffiti might have an influence on

its surrounding area, but is only one aspect of many others:

“Yes, of course it plays a role; there are of course areas that decline, also because of graffiti, not only but also because of other facts. It surely plays a role who is hanging out somewhere at the entrance of the underground, drinkers or junkies, that has similar effects I guess. It´s the overall picture of an area” (GG5).

An interviewee from the UK has the same opinion, as he states that graffiti – although they might

have a slightly negative influence – do not automatically lead to the decline of a borough, but on the




other hand can contribute to prevent the status quo. According to EUK4 people sometimes don´t

want to get rid of the elements that give their local space a character, which can be old architectural

elements as well as examples of graffiti. Also an interviewee from Spain explains that people can

develop a normalized relationship towards graffiti, as in some way they get used to them (EE2).

Furthermore it is mentioned that graffiti can also have a positive influence on public places. One

example is that German writers were commissioned to design a public space in order to make it

more attractive and to prevent it from vandalism or illegal graffiti because the other writers would

respect the already sprayed graffiti (SWCG2).

According to some writers from Austria, graffiti even has the opposite effect than it is described in

the “Broken Window Theory”. According to them graffiti often happens in already downgraded areas

with cheap housing prices. This would also attract artists that are looking for cheap places or places

where they can perform their art without disturbances. With their graffiti art they start to improve

the area. On basis of this improvement the area gets “hip” which means more people with higher

income enter the area what again leads to higher housing prices (GA1, GA2). Therefore the graffiti

writers don’t contribute to the downgrade of an area but make it more liveable and thereby more

attractive. Also an interviewee from the UK describes – in a maybe less idealizing way – how graffiti

and especially street art can be used as an attractive factor in public spaces:

“… we’re trying to create a place, which is successful, and which people enjoy coming to and which people enjoy being in. Because we want people to buy flats and rent our property and visit our shops. So we have got commercial drivers. To do that, we think that you need interest and you need art and you need culture and you need a creative space and within that, I’m sure street art in some kind does have a place. What that place this is, I think we still have to define and explore” (EUK2).

As a further positive aspect is mentioned that in some cities, the graffiti are becoming a tourist

attraction (EUK4, GUK4, AUK2) so that the cities even advertise with their local graffiti scene to make

it more attractive for tourists (GG4, GG1).

“… its free high quality art that we have tourist coaches going round taking pictures” (AUK1).

“… many people in Hackney and Tower Hamlets are walking around photographing it and kind of tour groups are going around looking at, you know, different bits of graffiti. You kind of think, well, it’s become a… something of like a real cultural value” (EUK4).

A last example from the social sector uses graffiti as a tool to work with young people, especially in

deprived neighbourhoods (GE5). In this sense, the two civil society organisations that are involved

with educative and extra‐school programmes and activities, both mention how effective the

language of graffiti is for the connection of individual and collective emotions, and thus creating

social ties, social cohesion and a sense of belonging (SWCE1, SWCE2).

As it comes out, all researched countries have in common that the social perception and the social

impact of graffiti are strictly related to its external circumstances and the way the writers and their

surrounding interact with each other.




3 REGIONAL ASPECTS AND INFLUENCE FACTORS

3.1 Public spaces & Graffiti activity

Graffiti as an urban phenomenon

In the four countries researched graffiti is significantly described and perceived as a predominantly

urban phenomenon and mainly connected to the bigger cities. This is demonstrated on the one hand

by the results of desk research, for example in the UK graffiti activity is at least being reported to take

place more in dense areas (Office for National Statistics, 2012b; BTP, 2013 and Police.UK, 2014) and

instances of graffiti and graffiti vandalism are consistently reported and documented from urban,

suburban or built infrastructure areas (the London Assembly Investigative Committee 2002,

Campbell 2008, Graffiti Dialogues Network 2010).

On the other hand many interview statements refer to urban aspects connected with graffiti, for

example as regards Spain where although some graffiti writers cite other hot graffiti points outside

the metropolitan area of Barcelona, all interviewees directly speak of underground, trains or walls in

cities of biggest urban agglomerations.

In that context – the cities most notable or significant from the literature review for the UK, in terms

of graffiti, include London, but also Bristol, Sheffield and Brighton53. For Germany, according to the

statements of some writers – Berlin is seen as “meanwhile the capital of graffiti” (GG2) whereas

Munich lost this status in the 90s because of the city’s development towards applying restrictive

measures against graffiti (AG3).

According to a representative of the Austrian law enforcement services one reason for the lower

prevalence of graffiti in rural areas can be seen in that the social pressure is higher there and people

tend to know each other better having consequences on the possibilities in identifying writers

(PLEA2). However it has to be taken into account that in general there is a lack of information

regarding the relation of graffiti and rural areas and a certain methodological “bias” as most of the

interviews were done in urban areas and most of the surveys and documentations on graffiti are

related to city areas making it difficult to draw any firm conclusions – for instance, in the Catalan

network of trains (FGC), there is only information on graffiti available for the metropolitan lines

(Barcelona‐Vallès, Llobregat‐Anoia). Indeed, the control center does not reach the rural lines: the

area of security is limited to the metropolitan railway lines.

City specific influences on graffiti style

Generally it is stated that each city influences the development of a characteristic graffiti style.

53 Interestingly, each of these metropolitan areas is reported to have both suffered and benefited from different graffiti related activities within their respective localities (Bannister, 2013; Feeny and Watts, 2013; Young, 2014).




“Well I think each city indeed influences the people, how they write in the end“ (GG4).

In this connection as regards Germany there are significantly central differences between Munich on

the one hand and Berlin, Hamburg and East German cities (like Dresden, Leipzig and Halle) on the

other hand are mentioned: for example in contrast to Munich where the graffiti landscape is

characterized as heterogeneous but still as a bit “conservative”, the style and letters are noticed

more provocative in East German cities.

“In East German cities (...) one can notice that the style ‐ well those writings ‐ strongly has a specific orientation. Many people there write very provocative and here it evolves quite moderately, too. But people here are still not that open. In other words: here it is better readable and you´ve got more often those old styled letters“ (GG4).

Hamburg in general is ascribed a more radical, political, strong “left” position regarding graffiti (GG2).

Central aspects/influence factors regarding writing in urban areas

The characteristic reasons making particularly urban areas attractive for graffiti writing are seen

quite common across the four countries. Two central specific aspects can be distinguished.

Available space: First of all it is the provided urban structure of the city in general allowing space for

writing and owing a higher choice of walls and other surfaces that graffiti writers see as their

canvases. It is the metropolitan area’s density regarding tunnels, metros, walls, bridges and other

places allowing graffiti writers to find paintable surfaces and walls attractive for their activities.

Visibility of the graffiti work: Another central aspect is the much greater chance in urban areas with

more densely populated locations where most people will see particular instances of graffiti – that

aspect is mentioned in all countries researched. For example according to the Austrian interviews it is

of high relevance to the graffiti writers that their graffiti is seen by lots of pedestrians and thereby

can be found on public places (GA1, EA3). Prominent public spaces are also chosen to produce some

kinds of reaction or surprise among people walking by (GA2, GA3). Thereby big graffiti that cover a

whole house front are also very attractive for graffiti writers as they produce a lot of attention (GA3).

And it is similar with the writing on trains (GA2):

“With graffiti on the railway, the graffiti vandal wants to put it there, knows that it’ll be there for a long time” (PLEUK2).

It seems to be an interplay between the writer’s personal preferences and motives and the specific

urban structure influencing the selection of the urban setting for writing. According to the interview

analysis there can be identified typical specific urban structure differing between the cities

researched. But overall they do serve as “obstacles” or “facilities” correlating with the general extent

of graffiti in a city and the chosen settings and locations.

Of course the general availability of space influences the ‘demand’ (see also 4.1). For example by

making the HST network a priority in the Spanish government’s transport policy and becoming the

European country with the largest network (more than 2,200 km) (Albalate and Bel, 2012) entailed




the proliferation of new spaces to be painted in the last decade. Graffiti writers interviewed certify

that these are popular spots.

“They haven’t finished building the line and it is already painted” (GE4).

As regards Germany, too, it is stated a preference for the underground railway in Munich and a

preference for over ground trains in Hamburg relating to the respective extent of the transport

systems.

“There are differences rather relating to the extent of graffiti. And there are ‐ I would say the reasons for that are simply practical. Here in Munich for example there is a very large underground network. So the subway is the most interesting thing for the writers. Comparatively trams and buses are not that interesting (…). In Hamburg is very much, first of all the holding depots are nearly all over ground to the effect that the possibilities for writers to get to the trains are much better” (OG1).

According to the great extent of vacancies in the eastern part of Germany writers in those cities

often prefer ruins for their work and assess it quite positive (GG2).

There are also qualitative aspects of urban settings corresponding to the writers’ motives or

preferences. As regards London one of the writers expresses the motivations behind writing on

London Underground trains referring to certain types of tubes offering excellent requirements in

regards to writing.

“… the last year or so on the on the Circle line and the Hammersmith and City line and one stretch of the District line, the Wimbledon branch, they were running a certain shape and a type of tube train that has always been, like, the most loved of all the graffiti artists for... ever since it’s come to London, you know, this is like their favorite train for a number of reasons. It’s tall, it’s got flat sides, it’s got better space to paint on, it... for large parts of the system it runs over ground so if something’s painted on it you can see it running over the houses and, you know, but it’s always, like, it’s always been...” (GUK3).

But additionally to the quantitative and qualitative factors regarding the selection of a specific urban

setting for writing there is another central factor of influence regarding the extent of graffiti in

specific urban areas: the extent of security and the handling by the authorities with graffiti in the

respective urban area. There are different statements in the interviews of the four countries

researched pointing at this central connection between the extent of control and the extent of

graffiti indicating that it is not only the urban setting itself influencing the selection and extent of

graffiti in urban areas but also the given opportunities in form of the degree of control.

For example in Vienna markets are seen as an attractive place for illegal spraying activities as they

are usually open and hard to secure as one can hear security forces walking through the market

already from far away (AA3). Another example is given from Spain, where in context of the

implementation of two new networks in Tarragona and Girona (medium‐sized cities north and south

of Barcelona and administrative capital counties) no additional budget on security has been added to

this new service, making it easier to paint graffiti. In other words, the interview partner suggests that

the lack of surveillance attracts graffiti writers, even if the stations are not located in the




metropolitan area of Barcelona (OE2). Indeed, some graffiti writers interviewed indicate that

Tarragona is a hot point to paint.

Regarding the degree of control there are controversial statements found in the Austrian interviews:

On the one hand there is stated a stronger focus on underground and less on stations, buses and

tramways54 as the large railway and underground networks are easy to attack, because it is not

possible to totally lock them down or have security everywhere at all time (OA1, OA3). On the other

hand for some writers spraying trains is too risky (e.g. entering closed down or secured areas) as the

chance to get caught by security or the police is too high (GA3, EA3).

In regards of Germany the city of Munich plays a special role in connection with “security obstacles”

in pursuing a relatively strict policy in order to be a “clean city” – this in contrast to the cities of the

North and East making it in general much more difficult to write in public space generally.

“Compared to other cities I think here [in Munich, M.M.] it is most difficult to write (…) for here, there are so many policemen and so many civilian police personnel around“ (GG4).

3.2 Mapping Graffiti: is there a spatial logic?

In general neither the interviews nor desk research in the four countries researched point out that

there is a specific spatial logic in writing.

“There is no logic of where graffiti to be found. No. We can’t say: oh, we always have trains painted in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. No, no, no. What we detect is that there are trends, hot points. Now we have a zone much painted. You observe statistics and you see that they stop, and then they change towards another one, and then towards another. We finally have like seven or eight zones, but there is no relationship. They change in relation to their movement” (OE1).

The Crime Survey for England and Wales, for example, gives detailed information on Anti Social

Behaviour orders (ASBOs)55 issued and on Vandalism and Criminal Damage56, but no indication of

what misbehaviours they were issued for by location, so it is not possible to know the graffiti related

spatial patterns at national levels. There are some hints to spatial parameters by The Good Graffiti,

Bad Graffiti? report by Keep Britain Tidy (Campbell, 2008) citing the 2006/7 Local Environmental

Quality Survey of England. At a macro level, it implied that London as a whole is a ‘hotspot’ but also

that at a more mezzo or micro level in many cities and regions, there are particular ‘hotspots’ where

significant levels of graffiti were found: “These included back alleys, footbridges and subways (19%);

54 Source: Nussmayr, K. (2014): FarbeimBlut. Blogbeitrag. http://blog.nussmayr.at/graffiti/ [09.08.2014]. 55 Source: HM Government (2012) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/252952/ASBO_tables_2012_ODS.ods [02.08.2014]. 56 Source: Office for National Statistics (2013c) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime‐stats/crime‐statistics/period‐ending‐december‐2013/stb‐crime‐stats‐dec‐2013.html#tab‐Vandalism‐and‐criminal‐damage [02.08.2014].




public open spaces (13%); transport interchanges (13%) and secondary retail and commercial areas

(10%). Within these areas, graffiti was more likely to be found on walls (10%) and posts and poles

(7%)” (Campbell, 2008: 6). This is similar regarding Austria. Taking a look at press releases by the

police over the last years graffiti happens all over Austria, mainly in capitals but also in smaller cities

and often in or next to public transport facilities. These press releases can only picture a minor part

of the illegal graffiti activities (and probably the more severe ones) but are not able to give detailed

insights that will allow identifying consistent spatial logics57.

There are some online sources indicating spatial patterns and maps focused on street art and/or

‘legal wall’ locations, we can assume these are useful representations of areas at least where certain

communities take a stronger interest in graffiti activities, either illegal or legal. Such data is provided

for example by the London Vandal for London58, Bristol Graffiti Map59, and others including Legal‐

walls.net for the UK60. Whilst these walls are deemed by some as a successful method of prevention

when engaging directly with the right communities (PLEUK2) the critiques of these types of legal

walls include OUK1, who speaks of the potential for ‘graffiti spread’ leading to ‘more vandalism than

ever before’ (OUK1).

Figure 8: Map showing counts of ‘legal walls’ by UK location61

57 Source: http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/bmi/_news/bmi.aspx [02.08.2014]. 58 Source: London Vandal map of London Legal Walls https://maps.google.com/maps/u/0/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=201724578008958734945.0004dc3ccf12c45cec66e&dg=feature [02.08.2014]. 59 Source: Bristol Graffiti Map. www.bristolgraffitimap.com [02.08.2014]. 60 Source: Legal Walls, UK http://www.legal‐walls.net/#lat=54.59201484880978&lng=‐4.102503487499907&zoom=5 [02.08.2014]. 61 Source: http://www.legal‐walls.net/#lat=54.59201484880978&lng=‐4.102503487499907&zoom=5




Additionally there are some privately organised crowdsourced maps that can give at least first

impressions on the special graffiti situation in Austria, for example of SprayCity: Hall of fame map62.

Figure 9: SprayCity Map63

There were not found such maps neither for Spain nor for Germany (OE2). But there is a Google

Street art Project aiming at preserving an “evolving collection of street art from across the globe”64

which gives at least some – selected impressions – to street art all over Europe and worldwide.

All in all – according to missing information – there can only be collected single aspects for a spatial

logic regarding writing. But interestingly in Spain there could be established a kind of temporal logic

of painting graffiti. Public and private operators interviewed differentiate logics and modus operandi

of teen‐agers and older writers. In the first case, they mainly write during school holidays. The rest,

grown‐ups, are more organized and paint according to a plan, usually at night, especially between

one and four am (OE1). In general, and as noted by international literature (Pettersson and Stafford,

2004), graffiti paintings increase at night, during the weekends, and during Christmas, Easter and

summer holidays. Another factor that influences the increase or decrease of graffiti is economic and

social context. Representatives from public administration admit that there are periods with higher

concentration of protest that imply higher rates of graffiti.

“If next year the administration increases 10% the fee of public transport I am sure we will have more graffiti than if there was not this raise” (AE2).

[02.09.2014]. 62 Source: http://www.spraycity.net/?p=hof [21.08.2014]. 63 Source: http://www.spraycity.at/?p=hof [21.08.2014]. 64 Source: https://streetart.withgoogle.com/en/#map‐the‐walls [08.09.2014].




Graffiti and travelling

There are some statements of the interview partners in Germany that underline the connection

between graffiti writing and widening one’s scope. The expanding of graffiti activities is strongly

linked with the need to have a wider impact regarding one’s own work.

“If people do it seriously and if they are for example specialized in rail tracks or something, and do their graffiti on further “Ringbahnen” or anywhere else, they are everywhere, they do not want to stick to their district only but are interested in, well, having a big impact and doing kind of promotion (…) I mean Sony or Panasonic do not stay exclusively at their head offices neither, it would be nonsense if they would do promotion exclusively there“ (GG2).

Further statements in the German and UK interviews point to the fact that graffiti can no longer be

categorized as purely a local issue confined to each city or country – international networks between

writers from different countries forming temporary crews and journeys of graffiti writers are noticed.

“We realize that (…) often they are not Munich citizens. Usually there is one from Munich who knows the region and well, yes, otherwise the boys come from Spain or the UK or from far and wide. From time to time and they make indeed little journeys (…) Well I can state that there is a network between the scenes” (OG1).

“You can fly to Milan return (...) for about £80 (…) Why would you want to go to rainy Swansea when you can go to sunny Milan to paint graffiti’’ (OUK1).

“Certainly there are as international contacts. Many have taken an Interrail ticket to go painting in different countries. When I go on vacation I don’t do tourism, I go to paint. I always ask friends to tell me who they know at the destination to tell me how and where to paint. I've made a lot of friends like that. Then you say, 'hey I am from Barcelona so anytime you go there, just call me' and the same the other way round” (GE2).

No explicit use of graffiti maps

None of the interview partners from the sections state/local authorities, police/law enforcement or

transport systems in the four countries researched mentioned explicitly the use of so‐called graffiti

maps.

In single cases specific travel itineraries of writers are identified according to police investigations.

“We had them here because of shop theft when snitching spray cans and (…) it was assessed, hey, these two are writers, foreign writers, investigations were then intensified of course and then it could be assessed where they have been around” (PLEG1).

Additionally in Spain the local government of Terrassa, a 200.000 inhabitant’s city in the

metropolitan region of Barcelona, has started a project on mapping graffiti, but data are still

unavailable.




4 ETHICAL AND PRIVACY ASPECTS

Graffiti prevention involves some controversial aspects that need to be considered. Particularly the

criminalisation process may result in discrimination, unfair treatment and privacy threatening. It is

fundamental to take into account ethics in terms of graffiti prevention such as the distinction

between art and vandalism, painting with permission and legality, the criminalisation of graffiti and

its externalities among others. Besides, it is particularly important being aware of the privacy

debates arisen and data protection issues when prevention and prosecution strategies imply

gathering and sharing data on graffiti writers.

In this section different ethical aspects are addressed in order to identify controversies and to avoid

reproducing them while developing the Graffolution project. A whole section is dedicated to data

gathering and sharing, since graffiti writers’ identifications are the previous step for prosecution. At

the same time, important findings and reflections are considered towards the creation of the web

platform.

4.1 Ethics of graffiti prevention

Graffiti prevention is built on the bases that graffiti is closely associated to vandalism and anti social

behaviours. The debate considering graffiti as an offence or a form of (street) art is complex and, as

seen throughout the whole report it depends on the context, the stakeholder and the concrete

situation. It is associated with permission and legality, the artistic value and aesthetic elements but

not only this: also is to a great extent a matter of perception and vision of the world. Generally

speaking it is considered illegal by default unless it is commissioned by the stakeholders who are

criminalising it.

Vandalism or street art?

In this debate there is no consensus and it depends to a great extent to the stakeholders’ roles. In

chapter 2 different views on defining graffiti have been presented. In this section different

paradoxical situations are presented, reflecting how a single act can be vandalism or art to different

eyes, or even both at the same time. To start with, there are four actual and current examples.

In first place, private companies differ in their positioning but tend to have lax conceptions of what is

art. Recently Google has developed a virtual gallery. The Google Cultural institute, based in Paris65

has collaborated in the Google Art Portfolio and has included Graffiti as an art form66. Current walls

65 The street art database includes current artworks and some that are no longer existing, such as the 5Pointz murals in Long Island City, Queens, or the walls of the Tour Paris 13 tower in France. Source: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/home [30.08.2014]. 66 Source: Donadio, R. (2014). “Google Adds Graffiti to its Arts Portfolio”, The New York Times 10 June.




and past world‐known walls are exposed, based on pictures and documents gathered and donated to

the institute.

A second example is the “City as Canvas”, an art exhibition inaugurated in February 2014 in the

Museum of the City of New York. This collection, including works by artists such as Keith Haring and

Lee Quiñones, was donated to the museum in 1994. Several decades it started in the NYC subway,

the history and legends of graffiti enter the museum. This exhibition has been controversial

particularly for the New York Police body because “graffiti is not worth being in a museum” according

to a New York Police Commissioner. There is an on‐going poll on the Wall Street Journal asking

whether “Is Graffiti Worthy of Museum Exhibits?“67 where more than 60% of voters have said yes.

Although this is not a definitive result neither methodologically consistent, it can give an idea of how

graffiti is increasingly seen as artistic value.

The following example shows a Spanish case where the artwork is formally a graffiti (a paint made

with spray cans on a wall), but the content is not. In this case they justify “it’s not graffiti because it is

a replica of a fine art picture”. But the point is that they are painting with the town hall’s permission

and under uncovered circumstances and the support of the community and neighbourhood68.

And last but not least, sometimes fine art or urban art is used to prevent graffiti. A sort of battle

between good and bad which fosters even bigger distances between graffiti (understood as

vandalism) and art (urban, fine or any form)69. The prevention consists of hiring a graffiti writer to fill

murals with visual art instead of leaving them blank.

All these examples are referring to public spaces in general, where different conceptions can be

found. However, among public transport operators the discourse presents some consensus in

considering graffiti as a form of vandalism. In other words: for public transport services graffiti first of

all means criminal damage and thereby is treated the same way as common vandalism, whereas the

characterization by the police – and also by the general public – is more differentiated. All in all, the

most decisive indicators for the estimation of graffiti are its artistic value and the question of its

legality. In Germany both are considered, but in Spain, Austria and the UK that of legality is more

prevalent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/arts/design/google‐adds‐graffiti‐to‐its‐art‐portfolio.html?_r=1 [10. 06. 2014]. 67 Source: WSJ Poll: “Is Graffiti Worthy of Museum Exhibits?” http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2014/08/19/wsj‐poll‐is‐graffiti‐worthy‐of‐museum‐exhibits/ [19. 08. 2014]. 68 Source: “El resultado será muy similar a la obra original” [Results will be almost the same than the original piece], Faro de Vigo, 22 August 2014. http://www.farodevigo.es/gran‐vigo/2014/08/22/reto‐resultado‐sera‐similar‐obra/1079660.html [22.08. 2014]. 69 Source: Mortimer, L. (2014). “Fine art of deterrence: art used to beat graffiti”, Northern Star, 12 July. http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/Fine‐art‐of‐deterrence‐Art‐used‐to‐beat‐graffiti/2316342/ [12. 07. 2014].




The London Borough of Hackney does distinguish between graffiti which is purely destructive, and

that which might make some contribution to the area. The interviewee describes the rapid responses

they make efforts to undertake when instances of graffiti are considered inappropriate:

“… when it comes to just purely sort of vandalistic type graffiti then we’ll come down very hard and very fast on that and I’ve literally stood next to graffiti removal men on the tops of ladders on the tops of buildings, you know, scrapping stuff off the walls in the pouring rain just to make sure that stuff gets removed really quickly” (AUK2).

EUK2 suggests that there is a need for the cleaning teams who work on the grounds for the property

developer to be informed in a suited manner. If there was a platform that was aimed for sharing

information then this should take into consideration all levels of employees from high management

to cleaning teams.

In summary, different stakeholders have different views and those who traditionally have defined

graffiti as a problem, as an offence and vandalism affecting their premises, service, budgets and also

their social image. State and local authorities, for instance, explain the pressure they receive to

remove graffiti with political slogans. From the point of view of public and private operators of public

transportation, graffiti is mainly vandalism and should be more strictly punished. They consider that

writers should be treated as thieves, since they enter in forbidden facilities (tunnels, ventilation

bridges) and damage them (cutting networks, disabling alarms). The operators try to improve their

security systems but there are economic restrictions. As one of them notes:

“It would be ideal to have all the stores monitored and guarded 24 hours a day, but obviously that’s not possible. (…) we have other problems that need to be solved; you can’t have a police car watching only the store” (OE1).

Thus, their main prevention action is based on the “rapid removal”, to some extent rooted in the

“broken windows theory”. In general the removers are operators that might be envoys on behalf of

administrations (in case of public spaces) or transport operators (in public transport facilities). The

removal teams or contractors tend to be executors only that are contacted to remove or clean

specific areas with the main goal to make them look clean and without considering the artistic value

or appreciating the artwork. They do not have discretionarily to decide what to remove or not.

The graffiti writers affirm that there are many different motivations behind writing, and most of

them are not connected to vandal attitudes, in special those who want to follow their inner need for

expression:

“So people that smashing windows or slashing seat cushions [e.g. in public transport], I would bet everything I have, that are 99% not graffiti writers. Writers are just equipped with colours and want to do their art” (GA2).

Graffiti writers think that graffiti should not be forbidden or criminalized since it is a natural

dimension of human beings. Moreover, while graffiti is criminalized, street art is not. Street art is

socially accepted: “they ask for a sponsor (…) there is a permit, a mark and a product. And there is an

economic purpose” (GE4). Graffiti writers are afraid that progressively graffiti becomes considered




just in this artistic dimension, and that painting graffiti becomes an exclusive art, a good integrated in

market. They think that there are those who sell their paintings and those who don’t. They think that

this is because of the current economic system, which makes “losers and winners” (GE1).

“Graffiti is to paint in the street with a spray, with the hood, that’s the authentic. For me, that’s the authentic, though I am not against the other [street art]” (GE4).

With regards to how are differences handled, operators have discretionarily to remove whatever

they want. Actually they tend to remove everything in Spain, Austria and the UK70. The common

mantra is rapid and complete removal, as they are really concerned with the “broken windows”

theory.

It is needed a more efficient organization of the security guards and better coordination with

members of the Security Forces, both at state and local levels. Some transport operators also

highlight that another factor is the increase of training that the company provide is to their

employees and safety guards (who are sub‐contracted) in matters relating to health assistance and

civil protection (RENFE, 2011: 62). This is also when they talk about street art. It seems as the main

characteristic in a first step if something is street art or vandalism is just the fact if the graffiti writer

is permitted to paint in a specific area. Visual and artistic aspects are not relevant when people have

to act according their profession.

Along with the criminalisation process, Austrian graffiti writers express their discontentment with the

disproportionate treatment received. Several writers also mention that the legal system and the

convictions are unrelated to the problems graffiti is causing (especially in relation to more severe

offences). For example several writers compare convictions of writers and convictions of child

molesters which prove to them how unfair the system treats graffiti writers that were sentenced to

very high fines or prison (GA1, GA2, and GA3).

“… you know, if there is laws that punish graffiti artists more than drug molesters it is kind of like (…) maybe somebody needs to look at the law books again and be like "Ehm, that clearly something is out of line there” (GA1).

“And that also says something about society, that somebody who adds a layer of spray to a wall is treated worse than somebody who is like molesting children. It is kind of like what is really worse?” (GA1).

A writer also mentions that it would be important that all the actors that are part of the discussion

on graffiti vandalism try to make a step back and look at it less emotional and more objective (GA2).

Another person from the paint industry describes it as follows:

70 Transport for London created their first specific graffiti‐policy following investment in 2008‐2009. Interestingly, this was also their first recognized instance of attempting to distinguish between street art type practices and journey‐endangering or destructive forms of graffiti and have since reported that their recorded rates of graffiti vandalism have steadily decreased.




“… maybe it is better that he or she, it’s mainly the guys that I know, doing this instead of making other nonsense. It shouldn’t happen anything worse as somebody painting colour at something…” (EA1).

Not only at a conceptual level, but this perceived disproportionate treatment is reproduced when

they are caught by police and authorities (particularly in Germany):

“That was rather incredible and so. They have treated me like a terrorist somehow. That was really heavy“ (GG5).

“Rather, well, displeasing experiences with the law or with the people who try to prevent this. Well and that was bitter first somehow, to make those experiences, well to be 16 years old and have the Federal Border Police at home. (…) One is treated like the worst criminal. And if you are 16 years old it is not the first thing you think of when having a passion and saying ‚oh, I am writing letters somewhere“ (GG2).

“One is not aware getting in so much trouble just by writing something at a post. And it really is, one is labeled, you are totally, you understand, I did not understand at all what was going on with me“ (GG4).

Actually, graffiti writers mention that they are more likely injured when they are prosecuted than

when they can follow the procedure they have been planned (GE2, GE4). Indeed, public and private

operators of public transportation use safety guards, together with alarms and CCTV, as the main

obstacle for writers. Companies are coordinated with the police, but policemen only come when an

intrusion has been detected. Safety guards are the real sentinels of trains. Some stakeholders

denounce that writers, in addition of damaging facilities and entering in forbidden spaces, hurt safety

guards. The writers interviewed, especially in Spain, do not reject this idea. As one writer mentions:

“Security guards change during the day. In the metro, from 6pm, more experienced guards enter into service. They are called “lobos” [wolves] (…) Guards at night shift in the metro are those more antigraffiti. They are more prepared. (…) We normally don’t attack the police. But we attack private security guards if they catch us. But I have never assaulted the police for a graffiti” (GE2).

In that context a central dilemma concerning the perceptions regarding graffiti by the public, police and authorities on the one side and the intent of the artists ‘writing on the other side is mentioned.

“You do not do graffiti in order to make bad things. You really do not do it in order to endamage someone or the state, not at all. It is simply doing one’s own thing and, yes. And then in the end you realize how it is punished and how badly it is, well, how badly it is seen. (…) But the people who do graffiti (…) they pick areas specifically. For example a specific wall, where the wall is totally run down and they are noticing the property owner does not care about. And then they do a picture on it. And then it is assessed as material damage although the wall has been designed more beautiful in a way, and there is always an antagonism” (GG4).

“But there are always the two sides of a coin, people just have to think whether they take the time to look at it or not, after all if people are not up for it, well, I cannot help them (…) it is close to my heart that people would understand it a little bit somehow” (GG2).




Spanish writers mainly put on the table how distrustful are they with the figures on costs of graffiti

removal. The debate can be seen under three dimensions: interests, costs and fines.

In first place, all Spanish graffiti writers interviewed think that graffiti is a business for the

government; they think, “this is the other side of the coin” (GE1). Indeed, writers denounce the huge

amount of money wasted to remove graffiti year after year, when other priorities are left behind.

They highlight that in other countries, like in Italy or Germany, graffiti are less washed than in Spain.

They believe that some private interests are behind what they consider as disproportionate

expenses.

“They [public authorities] are interested in the existence of graffiti in trains. You know why? First, because of the public money they receive, it is clear that they are interested in allowing graffiti, because sometimes they leave a wagon in a tunnel without surveillance, alone. Or they leave a train in the middle of nowhere. We call them “tómbolos” (sic). (...) I am sure that they have a minimum rate of graffiti per month and they have to get them. It creates jobs: cleaning services, security (...). It is something very strange. On the one hand, it is criminal, but on the other hand, it creates jobs. I don’t understand it, it is very strange. I frequently think that I don’t understand graffiti. I don’t know what it is exactly. It is something very special, you know? And I don’t know how I have come through that” (GE1).

“I think that the TMB [operator for metro of Barcelona] is subsidized to wash graffiti. (…) If you paint a minimum of graffiti per year they will give them a fixed amount of money (…) there are metro lines where it is surprisingly easy to paint” (GE2).

“They are interested in having some people painting graffiti and some companies removing them” (GE4).

Their feeling is that there is an economical system based on graffiti, which is desirable for transport

companies but mainly to removal sectors. In Spain traditionally public budgets have suffered this sort

of situations, where public spending sometimes has been deviated under corruption patterns.

Writers in Spain thus think that although they are criminalised, prosecuted and their artworks

removed and painted over, there is always someone behind which has an interest to keep it this way.

Beyond the artistic debate, all Spanish interviewees coming from transport operators and public

administration have insisted in the economic impact of graffiti removal. It is also used as a

justification for tackling graffiti and criminalising it. The background idea is that the money spent in

cleaning trains for graffiti removal is not being dedicated to improve other aspects of the service or

facilities. However, the amount of budget yearly spent is tricky information at the eyes of graffiti

writers: they are suspicious about the numbers provided and their general impression is that these

ciphers are insignificant in relation to the whole budget they hold. We found particularly two strong

reactions of graffiti writers against this argument. One told us “if they are giving that importance to

the money spent cleaning graffiti, is this meaning that otherwise they would have not cleaned the

trains? If that is the case, they should be thankful to graffiti writers: the best way to keep their

carriages taintless” (GE5). The second one shows that when information is provided they should

show reasonable numbers, in order to avoid reliability losses: “One year in the metro instead of




cleaning the glass put a vinyl sheet to protect them. At the end of the year to give back the same

figure, as if they had changed again when the crystals actually just replaced the blade” (GE4).

The graffiti writers build the most consistent group that raise the concern that the fines that have to

be paid by caught offenders are too high as they are calculated or assumed on wrong facts. That

offenders should compensate cleaning costs is accepted by some of the interviewed writers. Paying

for dropout trains because they have to be cleaned before they can go back on track is seen as unfair

procedure that skyrockets the fees and ruins the lives of caught graffiti writers.

Permission & legality: are there legal alternatives to write on walls/trains?

Beyond illegal graffiti, the writers have some options to paint with permission or according to

legality. However, permission and legality do not always go hand in hand. A paradigmatic example in

Barcelona is that of shop shutters. There can be an agreement between the artist and the shop

owner but it will still be illegal:

“… we used to go and ask people if we can paint their roller doors and their shutters on their shops. In Barcelona they made it that like if I painted someone’s shutter the shop owner would get fined 3,000 EUR by the council and the police. So I wouldn’t get arrested for it, but the shop owner would be fined for letting me paint the shop” (GUK1).

What the graffiti writer describes is the punishment of residents who allow work on their properties,

which may cause strain between graffiti writers and property owners.

Regarding to legal framework, further insights are given in chapter 5. When considering permissions,

a few things should be taken into account, such as who is giving permissions, how are they handled

(waiting for response, requirements to get the permission), is there a distinctive mark to know who

has permission (while painting and after work). At this stage permissions are to be from public

administrations or otherwise are invalid (which shows the example of this writer in Granada71).

Besides this responsibility as well public administration and transport services see the need for areas

where graffiti can be done legally. From a city perspective these are mainly free wall projects

together with social work initiatives that are constantly looking for new places where graffiti writers

can paint and where other citizens can benefit from it or at least are not disturbed (AA2). For

example there shouldn’t be flats with windows directly above free wall areas as the spray vapours

could constantly disturb or harm tenants (SWCA1).

Legality often is referred to the surface painted and not so centred in the action itself or the people

involved in the artwork. Only tagging makes a difference: Tagging is always out of legality and is

badly considered by all stakeholders (even graffiti writers refer to tag as senseless a nuisance,

without value). The interviewees from different actor profiles point to various legal alternatives that

71 Source: “Graffiti legalised in Granada”, Euroweekly news, 9 August. https://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/spanish‐news/item/121958‐graffiti‐legalised‐in‐granada [09.08. 2014].




utilise graffiti in public spaces and public transportation. These alternatives include commissioned

graffiti, murals, and legal walls (these are the most common, more or less centric in the cities, also

the non‐lieux). Few examples of trains have been found72. Transport Operator OUK2 explains why

transport facilities are difficult to turn legal:

“Certainly, from our perspective, we won’t be moving away from our strategy. I would like to see us moving into the use of curated art more extensively, particularly in locations that are challenging for us, so taking us away from the tube environment, per se, because that’s very difficult to be flexible in” (OUK2).

The interviewee suggests that transport system is a less flexible space compared to public spaces and

therefore arguably harder to manage legal works. Also the place is important: providing a visible spot

will encourage graffiti writers to use it. All four countries surveyed have mentioned legal alternatives.

Graffiti writers that are interviewed show interest in legal spaces and opportunities (GE1, GE4, GE5,

GG5, GUK1, GUK3, GUK4). GUK3 suggests that there is a need for an advocate for legal walls

between graffiti writers and other actors, “It would be great if there were someone who was an

active advocate for finding places to paint…”. The interviewee elaborates:

“Not necessarily an agency that was about trying to get people in to do video shoots and stuff but someone who could, with the amount of walls that get swallowed up by development in London at the moment, you know, things disappear, places of paint disappear all the time; somebody just making a few calls and going, “Can we have that for, you know, can that be painted for six weeks?” and then you could sign up; somebody like me could sign up for it” (GUK3).

GUK3 further adds:

“I think outlets... I feel it’s worth giving a try for outlets, like, advocacy for people that want to paint, who would go and paint a wall without permission but would just as easily do it with permission ‘cause they want to do something nice, so some advocacy on their behalf. I've always had this notion that graffiti ought to have served buskers on the tube. It should have been something that brightened up people’s day even though it was technically not really permitted. I would like to see that being given a chance on a train line or two just to poll people’s reactions.”

Enterprises and Transport Operators underline that although they are open to use legal graffiti in

their properties, they will not abandon zero tolerance strategy for illegal works (EUK2, OUK2). This

shows how legality is not linked to permittivity necessarily.

The following examples show different initiatives of important cities for each of the participating

countries. Vienna is an interesting case, as it was the first city to provide free walls for legal graffiti.

Because of several convictions of young illegal writers in the 80es the so‐called Graffiti Union reached

later an agreement with the mayor of the city to allow graffiti in specific places. (SWCA1). In 2004

again the need for more free walls for graffiti was addressed to the mayor. A task force was built that

72 The most well‐known graffiti train example is that of the Brixton Urban Art fair, held annually. http://www.urbanart.co.uk/




decided to extend the amount of free walls. For the project called Wiener Wand graffiti artists

created a logo in form of a dove as a sign for something that is as well loved and hated by big parts of

the community. The symbol marks today places where it is allowed to do graffiti (SWCA1). Since 2004

areas where it is ok for the district as well as for the property owners and where adequate areas are

available they are then opened up and called Wiener Wand and there this kind of art can be

installed” (SWCA1).

On the contrary, in the city of Munich we find contradictory perspectives regarding the extent of

legal alternatives for writers. The interviewed writers in general criticize the current lack of legal

walls in Munich (this in contrast to former times). The lack of possibilities for legal writing is

connected with several negative aspects, for example the risk reduction of graffiti quality.

“Because there are hardly any legal areas, but (…) well there is only one or so but actually it is far too little for the city and also in regard to maintaining quality a little bit and to keep the people away from the illegal” (GG4).

“A big problem in the city is that we have only few legal areas (…) it is not possible to go somewhere, sit down and be at ease and do something” (GG4).

On the other side representatives from police/law enforcement state that there is a big amount of

legal projects. However it is also stated that only few people know about these projects, which gives

clues to certain communication lacks.

“We have many legal projects in Munich each month. Many people do not know that“ (PLEG1).

Findings like this show the importance of a common place for legal walls promoters and graffiti

writers, as the Graffolution platform might be.

Regarding the (private and political) handling of legal areas Munich is ascribed a specific role – these

can be in different ways. On the one hand the lobby of property owners is quite powerful and often

counteracting efforts to provide legal walls having fear of decreasing value caused by broken‐

windows effects.

“There was definitely a lobby of property owners or they have interest in, that it did not happen because it would simply decrease the value” (SWCG2).

Additionally the neighbourhood often plays a facilitating and essential role – even if housing

organisations take the step and would provide temporary legal areas.

“The housing organization (…) did offer to provide the areas for graffiti (…) temporarily and everything would have been great if there had not been again other obstacles like the population living near or around or in the neighbourhood and resisting extremely and protesting against it” (AG3).

These two positions are showing strategies of resistance and opposition to legal walls.




In London’s case, there are many alternatives; the most famous is Leake Street. Leake Street is a legal

painting tunnel located underneath the former Eurostar terminal in London’s Waterloo station. It

was the site of Banksy’s Cans festival in 2008 and it has been an authorised graffiti location ever

since. It is consisting of 10 legal walls”. However, some suspect that promoting legal walls is a simple

way to gather artists in one point in order to collect information (pictures, tags, graffiti pieces) that

afterwards can be used to match other pieces of information. GUK1 reports that the police tried to

tag writers through legal walls in a controversial manner:

“The police have tried to do things like they put cameras down Leake Street to catch people. So they give them a legal wall put up cameras, someone goes down and writes their name legally and they know that that person’s name is Glorious (…) and then they’ve got CCTV footage and can put a face to a name” (GUK1).

Barcelona has also the “Free walls” and “Free shutters” initiatives, which have been promoted by

civic associations but have found the approval of public administration. Writers are allowed to paint

in some specific public spaces of the city (see point 2.2.1) as a strategy of prevention. An interesting

experience in this sense is that of the tramway network, where they designed the underground stops

in collaboration with the University. Arts lecturers conceived the public space as a canvas to throw

messages to population using the tram service. Those messages are included as mural paintings and

sprays artworks. In Spain the legal walls model is not well developed yet and some paradoxes have

been mentioned in the interviews. Paradoxes expressed by GE5: “I was fined in the evening for doing

the same I had been doing in the morning. The difference was that in the morning I was hired by the

town hall and in the afternoon I was painting a friend’s shutter”.

We have some data coming from Rebobinart (an artists’ association) in relation to the initiative

“Free walls” in the City of Barcelona, where owners and graffiti writers made an agreement so that

they can write with permission in specified walls and public spaces. Between October 2012 and

January 2014, there have been 419 users of legal graffiti. 60% come from Barcelona while the rest

come from other regions of Spain (10%) and abroad (30%) (Rebobinart, 2014). The percentage of

foreigners is quite high and shows the attraction of Barcelona for graffiti writers. Another interesting

data are about sex and age of participants in this initiative (which might not be representative but is

the only data we have about the use of free walls): 86% of the users are male versus 14% of female

writers. We have approached a couple of females but they were not interested in participating. A

third of participants are between 23 and 27 years old and 72% are older than 23 years old. We don’t

have such data for the authors of illegal graffiti. Nevertheless, based on the existing literature and

the interviews, and compared with these statistics, it seems clear that there are more female and

older writers painting in authorized walls than illegally.

Painting legally is not always synonym to freedom to paint. Apart from this, graffiti writers are quite

critical with the spaces declared as legal walls. The current strict policy regarding the providing and

controlling of (the few) legal areas is criticized counteracting the development of a graffiti scene.

“The other problem is that Munich authorities were always acting very restrictive. So there are, if writers really get the chance to design a passage underground or an area, it is always




connected with agreements regarding the design counteracting any form of creativity. This means often it is dictated which colour or motives are required, that cannot and there a graffiti scene is unable to establish, it is not possible that anything advances” (AG3).

In the context of handling legal areas one interviewee describes a characteristic ambivalence

between reluctant attitudes and connected restrictive measures regarding graffiti and proactive

attitudes and connected pro‐graffiti measures – according to the respective requirements and needs

of the property owners and relevant authorities.

Another option for legal painting is commissioned graffiti, which is insistently mentioned in the UK.

EUK2 interviewee claims “I think if we were going to commission something and pay for something

we would look at all forms of art. To see what’s an appropriate response to that space”. EUK2 notes

that they are in contact with Global Street Art. A good example is when building societies need to

draw attention to planned properties it might happen that they make great efforts to find writers for

writing on these vacant areas temporarily. In the interviewee’s opinion writers are exploited this way

by grading up the area and advertising the new planned building projects.

“That is attention by graffiti. Nice and colourful pieces, a small party, well what is that? (…) Ah this is being renovated, interesting. Can one buy that? Ah properties (...) the sprayers are exploited that way (…) that is Munich, nothing is happening without reason and motive” (SWCG2).

Involved in Social Work, SWCUK3 charts out a positive use of graffiti when done in collaboration with

other commercial actors in a democratic and organised way:

“(...) if you had spaces in obvious areas around the capital or main high‐advertising space that people pay a lot of money for, and you have to do a competition where you send your designs and they get voted for by the community, then you can have your piece up there for three months, a month... I do not know... but it won’t be cleaned off (...)” (SWCUK3).

The discussions reflect that there are opportunities where graffiti talent can be used with positive

effect under legal forms, and that could exist in public spaces as well as transportation. As AUK2

suggests “street artists going mainstream and actually turning their street art skills into business”

reflects the possibilities for positive opportunities. Thus, there is a stream of writers that are trying to

earn a living by painting graffiti73.

The future of legal walls is not clear although positive ideas come from all the stakeholders. Graffiti

writer is positive about the future of legal opportunities and explains this system can work by

considering the requirements and necessities of various actors. GUK3 also suggests that most writers

would take ownership of these spaces and look after them “...you need to pick the people that can

do it well and knowing the mentality of the sort of people I know, it would be like, or “We would like

to have this wall that is ours and our mates wall and if we don't look after it we will lose it”.

73 Source: Chuet, J.P. (2014). “Grafitis comerciales, una alternativa laboral” [Commercial graffiti, alternative jobs]. http://www.consumer.es/web/es/economia_domestica/trabajo/2007/10/24/171018.php, [24.06.2014].




Also has to be taken into account that those artists aiming the adrenaline have confirmed that

although there are legal options available, some will continue painting illegally. While those more

inclined to artistic expression would prefer to paint legal, giving priority to the artwork and not the

time dedicated to it. One can wonder if those who paint illegally have the same profiles than those

who profit from institutional experiences promoting authorized graffiti. When asked if they would

accept to paint in legal walls or under permission, graffiti writers interviewed differ. Most of them

admit that they combine illegal and legal graffiti. According to one of them representing the

minority:

“If it is legal it is not graffiti. (...) If it is legal is like join in paintball” (GE3).

Although only a minority of graffiti writers in the countries surveyed reject legal graffiti, the

interviewees might not be representative of the whole graffiti writer community. Especially given

that during the recruiting process some have rejected to participate due to the focus of the project.

The legal alternatives can become a double‐edged sword. On the one hand they can be part of a

programme ‐ usually promoting street art such as in London74 or Barcelona (Benvenuty, 2014). In

some other cases might be a pro‐social initiative in order to dignify, revitalize and build social

cohesion in deprived areas (GE5). Several experiences have been carried out in this sense75.

Administrations in some cases use graffiti to engage the youth, or raise their awareness on

something (such a Spanish local authority did when promoting recycling) (Hunter, 2014).

Graffiti vs advertising

Graffiti is discussed in relation to advertising by a number of actors interviewed. Both are visual

elements that are present in streets and have an impact on public space and public transport. Some

writers explicitly mention graffiti as a counterpart of advertisement. In their understanding it is not

comprehensible that people have to face advertising everywhere in public space which is legal but

facing non‐commercial graffiti that is declared as illegal. As nobody can opt‐out to see advertisement

also there is no opt‐out in seeing graffiti (GA1, EA3, EA1, GA5, GE1, GE2, GE4, GE5).

It is important to document the backlash graffiti writers feel against advertising; this is consistent

across a number of actors interviewed and from the literature reviewed. For example GUK5 hopes

that in the future there will be: ‘’less adverts and more art in the streets’’. Advertising and graffiti

both impact the public space in different ways and also have an influence on each other. We can

infer that SWCUK3 believes that advertising appropriates graffiti into the mainstream. The

interviewee’s view is that this will continue to affect the future of graffiti: “They will always be

74 Source: http://ico.org.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/cctvhttp://sabinaandron.com/leake‐street/ “‘100 Days of Leake Street’ is a project that shows the changes on 10 different walls in a legal graffiti spot over 100 consecutive days. It is meant to reveal the necessity of free painting places, by demonstrating the energy and variety of the graffiti they attract.” [02.09.2014]. 75 It is worth mentioning “Djerbahood”, a project developed by a Tunisian artist installed in France, that has converted Djerba (Tunis) into an outdoor museum: http://www.biobiochile.cl/2014/08/14/grafittis‐transforman‐desolado‐pueblo‐de‐tunez‐en‐verdadero‐museo‐al‐aire‐libre.shtml#!/image/37672 [14.08.2014].




around but now it is getting outsourced to media. A lot of it is being used in adverts and people do

use it in terms of their building, like craft (...)”.

As a reaction, some graffiti writers re‐appropriate advertising strategies to ‘get up’ and spread their

name on buildings rather than train tracks, this suggested move away from train tracks is also due to

increased crime prevention techniques and advancing technologies. This situation is found mainly in

the UK, although there is a huge difference in every country between painting walls and painting

trains.

EUK4 from an architectural point of view illustrates the large space advertising takes in property

development in public spaces:

“Once we were involved with the local authority and the community, suddenly we’re having to work with business improvement district who, you know, wanna slap their logo on every single bin and plant pot. And then they do these things, which are kind of dressed up as kind of… kind of, you know, adding creativity to the area, but actually they’re trying to just kind of tag… like get a bit of creative kind of cache…” (EUK4).

OUK1 argues that when arrested graffiti writers defend their illegal actions by comparing graffiti

writing to commercial advertising. OUK1 demonstrates graffiti writers’ points of view by saying, “Big

companies do advertising. I’m just advertising myself (...) I’m just doing what they are doing”. The

discussions here suggest that more work needs to be done to open communication channels

between these actors. Graffiti writers insist that adverts are not questioned although are formally

the same: a form of invading public space for message delivery. They use this argue even when

arrested.

Even some big brands use graffiti as a message and appropriating the values associated to graffiti,

two good examples of this are following. On the one hand, that is the case for Red Bull, which has set

a contest named Canvas Cooler Project 201476. On the other, Luis Vuitton produce a collection of

bags and complements named “Monogram Graffiti Canvas”77.

There have been examples of successful community projects where advertisers donate commercial

space to youth groups giving them a legal space to share their messages in the urban environment

such as the digital "Brand Me" vision board at Old Street Roundabout (London Art Network, 2014).

Graffiti as youth activity

The stereotype of graffiti writer is linked to the image of a young man with hood and a spray can in

his hand. Different forms of social sorting (including discrimination and labelling) towards young

76 Source: “Houston's most famous graffiti artist shows off in rocking Red Bull party: When art & champagne's

wild”, Culturemap.

http://houston.culturemap.com/news/arts/08‐15‐14‐houstons‐most‐famous‐graffiti‐artist‐shows‐off‐in‐a‐

rocking‐red‐bull‐party‐the‐art‐and‐champagnes‐wild/ [15.08.2014] 77 Source: http://www.louisvuittonbagsokoutlet.com/speedy‐30‐p‐1879.html [15.08.2014].




people observed have been observed. However, this is more a perception than reality according to

numbers: as aforementioned, while tag is a particular activity that is mainly a teenager activity,

graffiti goes beyond early adulthood and more girls and women are joining the scene. Oldest graffiti

writers interviewed mainly have the understanding that graffiti is an important way (especially for

young people but not limited to them) to express own feelings, transport messages and opinions.

(GA5). In Spain, graffiti writers consider that graffiti is discriminated, that is considered as vandalism,

and that there are prejudices towards young people (GE2, GE4). They think that graffiti writers are

criminalized by their physical appearance and that there is prosecution and interest in socially

constructing the idea of “organized criminals”, as news usually reflects (see for instance Rivas, 2013).

All the experiences of most of the writers interviewed with the consequences of those perceptions in

form of prevention and general treatment are negative and relate to discrimination, labelling or

prejudice. All of the graffiti writers interviewed have suffered the criminalization process made at

young age. The interviewee explains that this network includes a wide range of people:

“I think that, well, the ones that we are working with are a terribly nice bunch of people. You break away from the stereotype of them being young kids off the estates. They're people who take their art very seriously and wish to become more accomplished at it and wish to learn from other artists and want to learn from practicing. So, it’s not something that’s undertaken lightly. It’s not in the main somebody saying, “Okay, I want to mess up this town. I don't like this town; I want to mess it up and make it a bad place” (GE5).

Graffiti and youth are two associated concepts in both directions. Also in pro‐social sense as showed

the targeting activities on behalf of civic society and social work and cultural institutions. Public

administration dealing with youth culture and social work also have the understanding that it is

important to try to explain other institutions where youth related offences such as graffiti come

from. They try to communicate that it often is not done as a criminal act but as typical deviant

behaviour within a certain age (AA2). This stereotype is also accompanied by a paternalist look at

young people’s unawareness. Interviewee PLEUK2 provides an example that illustrates that young

offenders may not be aware of the consequences of their actions “they had not really taken on‐

board the problems and pains it would cause”.

In the UK there is a long tradition of coping with youth and graffiti. Looking at Brighton AUK1 explains

that they do intensive collaborations with the graffiti writers for community projects. In terms of

community engagement and prevention programmes, AUK2 explains that they specifically targeted

young people and aim for their inclusion:

“If you can imagine in a place like Hackney, which is Inner City London, we put an enormous effort into gang prevention work and trying to prevent young people getting involved in gangs. So there’s huge effort on behalf of our community safety team, on behalf of the police, to try to mostly… well both work with the consequences of gang behaviour, but mostly to prevent young people getting into the bad side of gang culture” (AUK2).




However, AUK2 argues that if the intention of a graffiti writer is not art, but to mark territory then it

is hard to channel that instinct through activity support, “Because we’re not talking about art here,

we’re talking about making your mark, which are much animalistic”.

From the graffiti writers’ perspective, GUK3 adds that criminalisation process is something inevitable

and considered as a rite of passage. The interviewee describes the criminalisation process as a means

to claim a position. However, GUK3 also states that it is not a preferable option:

“[you always have] The law … at the back of your mind if you are an active graffiti writer (...) think a lot of people around me always did and then I had numerous cases (...) when they're going through the courts they hang over you a lot and affect you personally and professionally. (...) Actually, I had a couple of times when I was really considering... there were quite sort of epiphany moments, I suppose but certainly the last time I was caught that was it. That was the final... I got so close to going to jail that I stopped” (GUK3).

As a final remark for this section, these programmes are quite exceptional and oppose to other

public initiatives that seek the contrary, i.e. chasing graffiti writers. For instance, the town of

Brunete, a municipality close to Madrid, invented a false competition of graffiti to attract writers and

make them wash their graffiti (Sánchez, 2014). These kinds of strategies do not help to create

incentives for writers to abandon the practice of painting trains or even to participate in graffiti

contests. Ethics of graffiti prevention need to build trust between stakeholders. Understanding each

others’ views and needs, building bridges of communication and allocating specific people that can

have dialogues with both parts seems to be crucial. Besides, all the steps need to be done carefully.

Trust is something fragile: while it is very difficult to consolidate, it is really easy to be destroyed.

4.2 Gathering & sharing data on graffiti writers

As law enforcement and transport operators want to tackle graffiti, apart from the several

prevention strategies that they may put in practice, a main issue is the identification of the graffiti

writers. Those stakeholders that see graffiti as an offence and as an act to repudiate seek ways to

stop or at least prevent and decrease the opportunities to write. In doing so, they use physical

elements (such as fences, gates and other hurdles), security staff (mainly private security agents in

public transport, and police and law enforcement bodies in public spaces) and a wide range of new

high technologies (being the CCTV the most common and present in every country). In this section

we will focus on the latter, since for the sake of prosecution the fundamental the right to privacy is

easily threatened, while gathering data on graffiti writers.

Traditional surveillance via private security guards and patrolling security staff is still present but the

success regarding the deployment of security staff is seen rather weak. As it is – due to cost factors –

only possible to employ security staff regarding certain ‘hot spots’ on a irregular basis and exclusively

regarding storage sidings by default, the representatives of the German railway systems state that

only few writers are caught that way.




“On the one hand we deploy our security staff, partly recurrently, partly only selectively regarding places where we say ‘well maybe we have hot spots over there’, but certainly it is difficult to catch someone or a offender when doing that only selectively (...) it is like winning the lottery” (OG3).

Due to reasoning like this, the use of surveillance technologies has been increasing throughout the

whole decade, although they might not be cheaper or more effective necessarily. In this section the

focus will be on privacy aspects related to identification processes. A special mention to surveillance

technologies will be made. Threats to privacy are not only a technological matter but the perils and

the scope is larger when using surveillance technologies.

Citizen‐to‐citizen surveillance is also present and is currently done basically using social media

profiles or apps.

Surveillance technologies used for graffiti writers’ identification

Surveillance can be applied to public spaces in general or transport settings more specifically. In

public spaces the most common is CCTV. Transport organisations mention to use diverse security

measures in combination ‐ which include trains or wagons and facilities (tunnels, stations or tracks

for instance). These measures initially not be deployed because of graffiti but usually are used to

tackle it (EUK2). As mentioned, the identification of who are the graffiti writers and how can they be

caught ‐ and therefore punished ‐ becomes a main concern (OE3).

CCTV is by far the most common in any of the countries surveyed and is considered the biggest

prevention tool. As per the British Police’s dedicated graffiti units mentioned, CCTV is serving

multiple purposes: a) Monitor potentially hazardous situations, b) Identify and follow suspects, c)

Provide powerful evidence in court and d) Boost public confidence with cameras acting as a

deterrent. CCTV can be equipped with facial recognition software (SWCUK3), thermal cameras (in

Germany) and complemented with motion lighting (EUK2) and different types of motion and sound

sensors as this operator states:

“… motion sensors, sounds sensors, low light cameras, trip alarms. These are all tools that help us to combat graffiti through law enforcement” (OUK1).

The UK is reported to have implemented the highest number of CCTV cameras per person, anywhere

in the world. This suggests that in London probably the biggest prevention tool is CCTV, “you can’t

step outside a building without being on CCTV in London, so that’s probably the thing that has the

most effect” (AUK2). The great number of CCTV creates a general feeling of infallibility. However, the

effectiveness of all these measures remains unclear. Public and private operators of public

transportation consider they need to improve their systems of prevention to stop writers from

painting.

Transport operators agree to a different extent that surveillance technologies are helpful for

identification of perpetrators, while its deterrence effect seems more diluted. Evaluations reported

in 2008 by Welsh and Farrington for the UK Home Office indicate that “CCTV schemes in city and




town centres … as well as those on public transport, did not have a significant effect on crime”

(Campbell, 2008), and Anna Minton, writing for the UK’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation, reports that

“mounting evidence shows that private security and CCTV does not reduce fear of crime or actual

crime and might in fact increase crime” (Minton, 2008). Clearly, such findings are not specific to

graffiti but given impacts of graffiti activities are understood to vary, there appears to be an

opportunity to interrogate the relation between surveillance and graffiti further.

In Bavaria, there have been noticed deterrence effects to some extent. These are interpreted as a big

success: looking at a period of two years graffiti significantly decreased within the respective trains in

Bavaria.

“We have video surveillance in the trains, in the new train, that means if a picture of the offender is taken and the offender did not cover up his face, 95 % of indoor‐graffiti in Bavarian trains can be detected that way (…). And additionally it was recognized continuously that the damages decreased rapidly“ (OG3).

A less common thing is social media surveillance (only mentioned in Spain and the UK), which is

mostly practiced by law enforcement and security bodies. In Spain, it seems a general practice.

However, in the UK only those considered “street artists” seem to be present and having profiles in

social media (GUK1). They also use social media to find out what do graffitists say on them and which

their movements are. Graffiti writers may use online social networks as an on‐line informal gallery.

Other surveillance technologies have been disclosed in the interviewing processes and during the

desk research, some already deployed (as the FGC application in Spain) and some are planned for a

close future such as drones or helicopters in Germany. This latter country is seen as the more

inclined to use technology for catching:

“But in Germany there is, mainly in Bavaria and Munich they try to prevent you extremely from spraying, by pursuing you applying a major technical effort. With helicopters every week, helicopter operations in order to catch graffiti writers” (SWCG2).

The use of drones is planned not only to detect but also to locate and document the illegal activities,

so that the recordings can be used in court. According to the Deutsche Bahn once more this measure

is a reaction to the high number of graffiti vandalism and the enormous costs it causes. By now the

use of drones is under regulation at different paces across Europe. In Germany it is limited and only

allowed in DB premises.

And last but not least, is citizen‐to‐citizen or natural surveillance. Different operators mention

various platforms and channels (emergence telephone, twitter, apps) to communicate with

population and get some information from users. Since the democratization of smartphones,

multiple apps have been developed. This is a usual strategy appearing in the media78. While natural

78 Source: “Trowbridge graffiti vandals are caught red handed”, Wiltshire Times. http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/11412250.Trowbridge_graffiti_vandals_are_caught_red_handed/ [16.08.2014]; and DFO, 2014 “Spokane offers graffiti reporting tool”, The spokesman‐review, http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/hbo/2014/aug/14/spokane‐offers‐graffiti‐reporting‐tool/ [14.08.2014].




or horizontal surveillance can contribute to social cohesion and may have positive effects deterring

petty crime and graffiti, can be fostering suspicion among passengers and/or citizens or, at least,

push them to potentially play the role of whistle‐blowers.

Involving citizenship and promoting horizontal surveillance might be a good tool, although the

categories used to mention which activities and appearances are to be denounced, can contribute to

some extent to promote intolerance towards certain sectors. A good example of all these problems is

the application for mobiles developed in Spain.

In 2012 the regional company FGC developed an app to denounce “anti social behaviour”. The

mobile application FGC included a new element: an interface that encourages users to combat

antisocial behaviour from other passengers, by sending alerts. The application is part of a master

plan developed by the FGC in January 2012 to reduce antisocial behaviour. This is defined with many

options (dirty seats, loud music, scratched glasses, smoking), graffiti included as one of them. The

app was controversial since it included the possibility for users to denounce beggars, musicians and

vendors an option that was finally removed as a result of complaints (Aiats, 2012). Figure 10 (next

page) shows the app with the option of denouncing beggars (captaires in Catalan):

Figure 10: The FGC app for incivility reporting79

Passengers could report any of these categories from their phones without providing a name

(although not completely anonymously since MAC address and phone number can be revealed to the

receiver). In its first year, the application received 3,000 complaints of anti‐social behaviour in the

trains80.

79 Source: http://www10.gencat.cat/gencat/AppJava/cat/actualitat2/2012/727aplicacimbildfgc.jsp [15.07. 2014]. 80 According to the data, graffiti is not a big problem for users of the app (graffiti supposed only the 3% of all the incidents reported).




In any case, under this surveillance scenario graffiti writers become data subjects. Since the

monitoring and data‐capture technologies are widespread and implemented across a number of

applications, operated by both public and private organisations with lenient regulation, it is very hard

to know what consideration has been given to privacy issues, or what portion of data‐capture

instances are attributable to graffiti.

Particularly, the increasing use of CCTV introduces some ethical important questions. First of all,

cameras question the right to the own image and particularly to privacy. Secondly, it is necessary

that film recordings are supervised live or later and that they are stored and eliminated, where

applicable, guaranteeing access rights to the people who could hypothetically appear on them

(Guillén Lasierra, 2011). However, in general ethical aspects are not considered since the main

purpose is to tackling graffiti either way, forgetting to some extent that graffiti writers, as any other

citizen, have their right to privacy.

A public operator of train shows how in the cat‐and‐mouse game both parts are constantly adapting

to the changes of the counterpart:

“We have been professionalized. We try to get out the train the fastest as possible (...) we are getting more and more complex systems of detection of intrusions, alarm systems, security systems. But then graffiti writers are also becoming more and more professionalized. (…) We study them and they study us” (OE1).

At their turn, Graffiti writers also show some strategies to hide themselves from CCTV (Austria,

Spain) such as breaking or painting cameras, covering their faces, etc.). The interviewed graffiti

writers and people who know the scene very well didn’t seem to be too much concerned about

CCTV. One also mentions that it is easy to cover ones face to stay anonym or stay out of the angle

covered by the camera. (GA2). Others paint on cameras, break censors, and go down the tracks with

sticks. Another defensive strategy is to be cautious with their tags:

“When I paint trains, I put the name of the crew, in case they caught me. Because they can investigate you and connect you with another painting in another train. (…) I am sure they have my name in a list” (GE2).

In this adaptive dynamics perverse measures can be developed. For instance, one of the basic

conditions for CCTV surveillance is that data subjects have to be informed that they are under CCTV

surveillance premises. This year in Ireland a failure to accomplish with this principle has been

recorded at Dun Laoghaire where a system of hidden cameras was installed “to clamp down on

graffiti in the area”81. Although the UK Data Protection Act82 meant to regulate application of CCTV, it

appears more transparency around this area would still be useful and this can be applied to all

countries.

81 Source: The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish‐news/hidden‐cameras‐to‐clamp‐down‐on‐graffiti‐in‐d%C3%BAn‐laoghaire‐1.1896288 [14.08.2014]. 82 Source: Data Protection Act. http://ico.org.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/cctv [30.08.2014].




Creating databases

Under all these surveillance measures graffiti writers become data subjects. This means that

operators and administrations, in usual partnership with law enforcement are gathering data from

writers, too often without their consent. Since data controllers gather their data, all the information

collected needs to be processed and stored in databases. Databases are seen as the solution for most

of the interviewees aiming to prosecute graffiti writers, allowing to document graffiti damages in a

structured manner was pointed out several times.

Different ethical aspects need to be considered: it is not only important which data is gathered and

how or whether the ARCO rights83 are warranted. Data gathering or collection is just one of the steps

of the information cycle, which is followed by use, disclosure, retention (how the records are

managed) and destruction (for how long data needs to be stored). So often this data collection is

accompanied by data matching (based on the information gathered from the different surveillance

technologies), another important process threatening the right to privacy.

Data collected

The categories of data collected vary across countries but basically includes personal and non‐

personal information. For those that have been caught, their names and other personal data are

included, these can be then matched with footage or even fingerprints taken from discarded cans

that graffiti writers might throw away. Also the number of offences attributed to the offender is

recorded, as recidivism gives more strength to the prosecution. This is commonly used in news pieces

when a graffiti writer is arrested84. Reports from London borough environmental crime teams

indicate they also make use of a number of database technologies, including to ‘fingerprint’ tags, to

connect multiple instances of graffiti to single individuals. However, the quality and usefulness of

these databases is under discussion. The research team has been told that the quality, accuracy and

usability of these technologies varies considerably, meaning that identification errors and failures can

be expected.

In Austria for instance: currently there is no adequate database that is used to map, monitor and

analyse graffiti vandalism at law enforcement agencies in an efficient and structured way. In case of a

trial the needed documents have to be collected and analysed cumbersome and resource intensive.

However, the connections between law enforcement agencies, transport services and cities seem to

work out well (OA1, OA3, PLEA2).

83 According to data protection principles these are the rights to Access, Rectification, Cancellation and Opposition. The right to privacy also includes the right to control the circulation of an individual’s own information. 84 This is another form of criminalising graffiti: showing the big numbers of offences committed by a single writer. Recently has been in the news a graffiti writer from Badalona, who is blamed for more than 80 graffiti and many other petty crimes in the Barcelona subway system: http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barcelona/20140820/54413196803/detenido‐un‐vandalo‐por‐mas‐de‐80‐grafitis‐y‐danos‐en‐el‐metro‐de‐barcelona.html) [20.08.2014].




Almost all transport operators have a direct form for complaining to the police and usually have

agreed a systematic procedure for documentation. For instance in Austria all damages have to be

documented and reported to the police.

“Everything is documented, complaints and cooperation with the police […] that this can also be used in front of the court, including photos and so on…” (OA1).

In Spain the Civic Observatory85, their last meeting held in Barcelona the 21st July 2014, the partners

agreed on using the same methodology to assess the impact of graffiti. This new methodology should

enable that police, the public prosecutor’s office and judges become aware of the real cost of

removing graffiti and repairing damaged trains. As the press release of the last meeting states:

“Graffiti, which threaten the service, are made mostly by organized groups, acting often with antisocial attitudes, like stopping the trains, threatening railway agents or customers, in addition to risking their lives in acts like moving trains, entering areas under voltage or ventilation shafts” (FGC, 2014: 2).

Furthermore, the Catalan police has a unit specialized in researching graffiti, the ASMET (Àrea de

Seguretat del Transport Metropolità), where there is a protocol in the way of making and storing

pictures of graffiti.

Also in Germany it is of great importance to record all incidents. The Deutsche Bahn the database

across the group contains all security relevant incidents – including all graffiti related incidents (OG2).

These databases are mostly shared but Germany has a different condition in this sense: only police

and Deutsche Bahn use them, while other stakeholders affirm not to have any databases or special

software for graffiti writers’ data collection.

Generally speaking Information gathering is not only useful, but also seen as legitimate, OUK1

discusses the use of databases within UK transport policing, upon graffiti as essential to building and

connecting information linked graffiti to prosecutions:

“In terms of how we monitor [graffiti], of course we’re gathering information, not just through, visual surveys, but also through the use of information from informants and from local authorities and their databases, you know, it all comes into our database, where we make sense of that” (OUK1).

All in all, graffiti writers are aware of these measures and explain that companies removing graffiti

make a photo of them before washing graffiti, even in the street. They suspect that they collect them

and put them into relation with the writer. However, they do not have the chance to deliver

informed consent. Besides, those data controllers gathering data operate on the basis that all

85 FGC was pioneer in Spain in the idea of creating an Observatory on Civility of Railway Transport in September 2012. The aim has been to bring together the various initiatives and projects undertaken by rail transport operators in Spain in order to improve civic responsibility and management of the train services. The partners, apart from RENFE, come from different parts of Spain: Barcelona (Metropolitan Transports of Barcelona, Metropolitan Tram), Bilbao (Metro), Valencia (Railways of the Generalitat), Madrid (Metro), Seville (Metro), Mallorca (Railway), Malaga (Metro) and the Basque Country (Euskotren).




information has to be collected, without considering the proportionality principle or the link between

the need for large bunches of data and the purposes it will be used for.

Besides, in Germany, UK and Spain, utilizing information from the data base for press relations and

general communication via the website, the recorded incidents and their analysis aim to find

solutions regarding effective measures against graffiti vandalism.

“First of all these results are utilized to develop specific measures in order to prevent this. In fact that is the primary purpose of all these databases (…), It is important to recognize quickly where the core areas are and to act (….). It is also a basis for the decision‐making when do I do what and where“ (OG2).

In the case of the police the recorded files of writings are a central aspect in connection with police

investigation in all the cases.

“Of course every graffiti, tag or writing (…) is strictly recorded and will be compared to already recorded writings (…). That is the first, if I have an offender being seized somewhere and I get the record to see what did he scrawl. With the specific writing it is similar, are they related to the same housing area, are they related to the same crime scene area and then work starts (…) we see it as a text collection having created alphabetical folders where the respective writings are saved alphabetically in order to be able to see whether the writing is already existing or not“ (PLEG1).

Also the people involved in data collection processes need to be considered. An important role in this

field is the expert graphologist, whose role is to analyse different graffiti pieces and match those that

have been created by the same hands (being individual or crew performances). In terms of data

protection, the more people involved in the process of data treatment, potentially less privacy

warranties are there, and more cautious have to be with the process. Furthermore, it is important to

consider also the role of data processors (if there is any).

Data sharing and matching

In Spain the collaboration is becoming a priority, not only between a given operator and the police,

but also among transport operators in order to build a joint‐strategy. The creation of the Observatory

is very recent but is positively evaluated by some of the stakeholders involved. As representatives

from two different public operators say:

“We share experiences and ideas. We need to act together and homogenize the way we denounce, which information is important… it is the only way to eradicate this behaviour” (OE1).

“We are worried about civility, and one of the issues of civility is graffiti. Because we are worried (...) we try to share a data base to fight against graffiti” (OE4).

They are developing a plan for tackling with graffiti on the side of prevention but also reinforcing the

sanctioning part. Actually they are working on a shared database of “offenders”, shared among all

operators and in collaboration with police and law enforcement in order to gather and monitor

offenders, particularly those who had been caught more than once. The region of Catalonia is




particularly concerned, and has a special programme leaded by the centre for coordination of risk

(CECAT). Public administration and private and public operators outline the importance of

coordination between police, public authorities and operators. Also in Austria they have created a

dedicated documentation centre, which works closely with law enforcement and security forces

(OA1, OA3).

Collaboration between stakeholders means data sharing. Except for Germany. In regard to the

potentials of communicating and/or sharing data within a professional network an interesting aspect

was indicated from the PLEG section: the sharing of data is not seen as helpful and effective but

rather as blocking the exchange of information.

“No, we even blocked the access, in order to make sure that neighbouring departments not belonging to (our headquarter, S.K.) are not able to (…) access any longer (…). The reason for that is (…) if they have an offender they of course want to look there but would not give us information about it and now they have to give us information saying we have the offender, do you have something about him. For otherwise they did much without giving us notice saying, well, we just access to such a platform and skip the part of contacting the relevant department (…). And so we said, we want to have it blocked because if they want to have some information they shall send over a “Ermittlungsersuchung” (request for investigation, S.K.), (…) instead of having a platform everybody has access to, because hereby the exchange of information is equal to zero, as everybody would only look at this platform” (PLEG1).

And sometimes is the other way round: Public and private operators of transport rely on the police to

provide them with information of graffiti writers; they send to the police all the information they

gather from graffiti writers, meaning that sometimes not only relevant information is sent, but any

information gathered. This is directly attempting against writers’ right to privacy.

Finally, another matter has to be mentioned in the dimension of data sharing: as the international

mobility among graffiti writers is growing and social media is reinforcing international dynamics,

sharing information between countries on international “offenders” is becoming increasingly

important. Especially regarding offenders that are searched in various countries the exchange of

information is important so that the victims are identified and complaints can be collected across

borders. Few efforts have been mentioned during the process of interviews and graffiti writers

themselves explained that writing graffiti in other countries is at times easier and less punished than

in their hometowns (GE2).




5 LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Being the research based in the cases of Austria, Germany, Spain and UK, we have to take into

account that different legal frameworks are not only different in their regulation of behaviours, but

they do not even need to contemplate the same types for a given action or its consequence. In the

context of the European Union it is often compensated by the Community Law. But in the case of

criminal and civil law States do not only keep full sovereignty, but they might even include different

legal systems, as it would be the case for Germany and UK, and in a smaller extent, of Spain. So we

find an international phenomenon for which, in contrast with other modern legal challenges, an

international common regulation would imply changing the legal traditions of countries with

institutions that come as far in time as Roman law. So the first step is to frame graffiti in the legal

systems of the studied States.

When trying to analyse the legal framework for graffiti we should first establish the definition of our

object of study. As seen in the definitions of Deliverable 2.1 and the referenced documentation,

there is no single interpretation of the graffiti phenomenon. Jurists are always asked to give a

univocal interpretation and thus facing a hard task. The consideration of graffiti as a “social

movement”, “art”, “neighbourhood culture” by the painters, and an “antisocial behaviour”,

“infraction”, “felony”, “misdemeanour”, by the public authorities, gives a paradoxical starting point.

In consequence, from a legal point of view this activity involves some different traditional institutions

that are not usually studied together, but that, as we see in this report, represent a challenge to the

law and so to the researcher.

Permission by the owner of the good is the central idea in for the differentiation between legal and

illegal graffiti in the studied cases, and gives us the key to the legal qualification of it as of ART or ASB.

If the owner of the good grants permission, graffiti falls into the contractual scope of law. This

consent can also be granted ex post facto (after the action). And even a community legal acceptance

could be articulated, as it was in the case of the government of Bristol (UK) that organised an open

poll through which city residents decided to preserve one of Banksy’s graffitis (Lerman, 2013).

However, as stated in section 2.1, “it seems that most of the writers don’t deny legal forms but see

the illegal graffiti as the “original” one” (GUK3). And thus the illegal behaviour will rely on the lack of

an agreement, and understood as a forced intervention into someone else’s goods. And that said,

when the work is unwanted, it will be considered vandalism and punished by the criminal law, or at

least administrative law. It is then common to all the socio‐legal studied systems that the Criminal

Offence consideration prevails over the rest of legal implications. The legal framework affecting

graffiti is focused on prevention or delimitation, punishment and eradication. In the four observed

systems almost any graffiti activity can be considered a criminal offence, either as a felony or as a

misdemeanour.

Regardless of the commonly accepted definition of graffiti as an ASB, we find that the legal

framework for the phenomenon focuses on the study and regulation of the damage as to give a

qualification of the action itself. All four countries find their interpretation of damage offences in one




of Kruger’s very complete categorization, articulated through four different theories that all have a

different focus and can be summarized as following (Kruger 2009):

a) Damage of the material: According to that theory criminal damage is defined as every action that is

harming the integrity of the object´s material. The damage has to be verifiable objectively and be

happening without the permission of the owner. According to graffiti this would be the case for

example when the paint infiltrates into the surface or when the material gets damaged during the

cleaning process. Therefore graffiti is not understood as criminal damage if the paint is removable

without any residues.

b) Damage of the function and usability: This theory understands criminal damage not only as a damage

caused to the material of an object but also to its function or usage. In case of graffiti this could mean

that e.g. a traffic sign is not readable anymore after it got sprayed and therefore loses its usability.

Furthermore this theory includes the “aesthetic function” of an object – as typical for monuments. If

the appearance of an object is part of its function than spraying its surface is also understood as a

criminal damage.

c) Change of the shape: In this theory the will of the proprietor is a central element and more important

than it was in the theories described so far. According to that every change in the shape of an object

that is against the proprietor´s will is described as a criminal damage as he has the exclusive right to

decide about the shape of the object. It is quite obvious that graffiti falls in this category, although it

is not clear whether any will of the proprietor has to be protected or only those that are seen as

objectively reasonable.

d) Decrease of value: The decrease of value is an addition to the two theories “damage of the material”

and “change of the shape” as it points out the financial damage as the characteristic feature of

criminal damage. Thereby the decrease of value can be material or immaterial – as long as it is

persistent and the definition of the value is reasonable.

5.1 Study of the legal framework concerning graffiti vandalism for your country & sharing data on graffiti writers

Following the security approach all studied national criminal codes (Austria, Germany and Spain) or

the Statutes (UK) include specific provisions to punish graffiti writing as an offence, even when none

of them includes the word “graffiti”. The legal framework has been interpreted by courts, building an

incipient body of jurisprudence in relation to this phenomenon. This form of what is considered

vandalism in all four countries, as a serious form of ASB or incivility against property, is progressively

being recognized in the legal regulations, as we can see from the country reports. Specific

amendments have been made during the recent years that shed some light to the work of legal

operators.

In all four countries the key question is the permission of the owner. This is the starting point and

what makes the difference between legal and illegal graffiti. When no permission is granted, before

or after the graffiti work, in all four countries this activity is mainly treated as a criminal offence.

When comparing the legal frameworks we appreciate no big differences arise regarding the




definition of damage through which graffiti qualifies as an offence, but some interpretations made by

legislator or jurisprudence in each case can be very interesting in order to establish the specificities

that will affect this phenomenon. What we understand as a damage offence is very similar in all

studied systems. Starting with the luck of permission, that comes out as something evident in all

countries, the damage offences are understood as those that “destroys, damages, defaces or

corrupts” (Austrian Criminal Code art. 125) a good belonging to another person. The graffiti is

included in the general regulations concerning these kinds of offences, with small differences from

country to country.

What we understand as a damage offence is very similar in all studied systems. Starting with the luck

of permission, that comes out as something evident in all countries, the damage offences are

understood as those that “destroys, damages, defaces or corrupts” (Austrian Criminal Code art. 125)

a good belonging to another person. The graffiti is included in the general regulations concerning

these kinds of offences, with small differences from country to country.

In the case of Germany, Section 303 of the Criminal Code, regarding Criminal damage (2005 version)

establishes:

(1) Whosoever unlawfully damages or destroys an object belonging to another shall be liable to

imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine.

(2) Whosoever unlawfully alters the appearance of an object belonging to another substantially and

permanently shall incur the same penalty.

(3) The attempt shall be punishable.

A central milestone in the classification of the legal framework of graffiti and the prosecution of the

perpetrators is the 7th September 2005, when a new passage of § 303 “criminal damage” came into

effect. Until that point a criminal prosecution of graffiti sprayers was very difficult as they were liable

for compensation but not always guilty of an offence.

In the past § 303 of the German criminal code said: “Those who are illegally damaging or destroying

foreign property are getting punished by imprisonment of up to two years or a financial penalty”. The

two central terms in this paragraph are “damaging” and “destroying”. Destroying is a higher level of

damaging and quite clear for the jurisdiction, as it is understood as rendering something useless. In

case of graffiti this would mean for example that the costs for cleaning a sprayed object are higher

than its actual value. In contrast to that, a clear definition of the term “damaging” is more difficult

and especially the question if and in which way painting the surface of something is damaging the

object.

As a reaction to these problems and in order to make it easier to classify graffiti vandalism as criminal

damage a new passage was added to §303 in 2005. It says that also those are getting punished “who

are changing the appearance of someone else´s object unauthorized in a not insignificant and not

only temporary way.” As the older definition of criminal damage had a focus on the damage of the




material – at least in the way it was handled in the judicial practice – this point of view has been

extended to a dimension that was already described in the theory “change of the shape” as it is now

including the illegal change of the object´s appearance.

All in all the new passage of §303 criminal code gives – compared to the older version – a more

detailed and practicable definition of whether to classify graffiti as criminal damage or not.

Furthermore it is now easier for the victims to proof the criminal damage. As the focus of the older

version of $303 laid on the damage of the material this was only possible by the opinion of an expert

and thereby attended with enormous costs. With the new passage the efforts of investigation and

the costs involved are reduced clearly, while the classification of graffiti as criminal damage is still

limited by the categories of temporality and intensity (Mogg, 2007).

In Austria graffiti vandalism is considered damage to property by the Criminal code (Strafgesetzbuch

or StGB) article 125 or heavy damage to property, by article 126.

Article 125. Whoever unlawfully destroys, damages, defaces or corrupts the property of another shall be punished with imprisonment of up to six months or with a fine up to 360 day rates.

Article 126 (2). Who causes damage to property of another exceeding EUR 50000 shall be punished with imprisonment from six months up to five years.

It is interesting the wide range of damages offered by the law, and still defined by general words that

leave the door opened to judiciary for interpretation. As we can see it qualifies as an offence even in

the case of an aesthetic damage. It has to be noted that penalties are tough, mainly in the highest

range. The fact that it can be cleaned is secondary as the definition of damage also contains

defacement – however it will have an influence on the punishment. It is not considered damage to

property in case the change/defacement can be very easily undone (e.g. remove of a sticker).

In Spain we have to take into consideration the large amount of regulations affecting graffiti, both

from the administrative law and the criminal law. As a criminal offence, graffiti is qualified either as a

felony or a misdemeanor. As for the vis atractiva (preferential jurisdiction) of Criminal Law in the

Spanish Legal system, we must start our analysis by the study of graffiti as an offence, and explaining

what would the determining factors to differentiate between its qualification as a misdemeanors or a

felony. The general definition for a damage offence in Spain is contemplated in:

Art. 625.1 SCC (Spanish Criminal Code).

“Those who intentionally cause damage in an amount not exceeding four hundred euros shall be punished with the penalty of permanent traceability of two to twelve days or a fine of ten to twenty days”.

It will be then a felony all behaviour comprehended in articles 263 and 264 of the Criminal Code,

understanding any damage on private or public property that overpasses the amount of 400€. The

punishment in this case will go from fines of 6 months to 24 months, 1 to 3 years of prison. The

amount of the fine would not only depend on the damage, but also in the economic capacity of the

perpetrator.




Article 263 1 SCC.

Whoever were to cause damage to the property of another not included in other Titles of this Code, shall be punished with the penalty of a fine from six to twenty‐ four months, in view of the financial status of the victim and the amount of the damage, if this exceeds four hundred euros.

Article 264 1 SCC. […]

2. Whoever causes the damage stated in the preceding Section shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment from one to three years and a fine of twelve to twenty‐ four months, if any of the following cases were to concur:

[…]

2.4. When affecting assets that are publicly or commonly owned or used;

2.5. When these ruin the party damaged or seriously affect his financial status.

Finally, the Criminal Code still contemplates another felony,

against Historical heritage goods (Patrimonio histórico)

Article 323 SCC.

A sentence of imprisonment from one to three years and a fine of twelve to twenty‐four months shall be imposed on whoever causes damage to an archive, registry, museum, library, teaching centre, scientific laboratory, similar institution or to assets of historical artistic, scientific, cultural or monumental value, as well as to archaeological sites.

In these cases, the Judges or Courts of Law may order, at the expense of the doer of the damage, adoption of measures aimed at restoration of the damaged asset to the extent possible.

It has to be marked that the word in Spanish for this misdemeanor is deslucimiento, which can be

translated as “defacing”. In this sense Jurisprudence has stated that in the cases in which damage is

exclusively aesthetic, it should never be considered a felony, but a defacing misdemeanor (falta de

deslucimiento), regardless the amount of the reparation. The idea behind these decisions is that

while the good is still in use, it cannot be considered damaged. In this sense pronounces the

Sentence 2/2009 of the Provincial Court of Leon of 7 January, when it declares that damage should

be considered only when there is a) deterioration, b) lessening, or c) destruction of the thing.

It is a different matter if the writing involves offences against people’s image or reputation. If graffiti

included insulting messages of legal relevance, the painter would face other punishments, if the

content is considered as libellous, slanderous, threatening or containing apology of terrorism or

discrimination (Nieto, 2012).

An important factor must be introduced in the equation, and it is that for graffiti to be considered a

criminal offence, the perpetrator must be caught in flagrante (i.e. in the act). But in the case that




graffiti writers succeed in their work without being detained, it does not mean the owner of the

property loses the compensation rights. Regardless of the consideration of the ASB or incivility act as

a criminal offence or not, the Public administration or private holder of the property is always eligible

for compensation. When prosecuted at a Criminal Court, the procedure to demand the legitimate

compensation is as established for civil liability on the LECrim (Rules for the Criminal Process).

Besides the criminal responsibility of the painter, he/she may be sued for the economic responsibility

generated by his/her action, either at the Civil Court, for private owned property cases, or the

Administrative Court, for public goods.

Illegal graffiti in England and Wales can be prosecuted under both the Criminal Damage Act (1971 ‐

criminal law) and under the Anti Social Behaviour Act (2003 ‐ civil law). Accordingly, some incidents

of illegal graffiti can in principle result in both Criminal and Civil proceedings. In consequence,

England and Wales crime statistics also mainly reflect graffiti as either criminal damage or anti‐social

behaviour (ASB), rather than any act of graffiti being identifiable in and of itself.

The Criminal Damage act ‐ often referred to as vandalism ‐ is about enforcing rights to property and

can include graffiti but also acts of arson and malicious damage to property and vehicles. The implications of the UK laws related to Criminal Damage include that permission is the primary

driver that serves to determine whether any intervention damages, adds or detracts value to or from

a property (see Shaftoe, 2011). Very few UK (or international) legal frameworks or administrative

sources attempt to define their meaning of damage, or destruction, beyond terms of permission and

impact upon property value, yet there appear to be no associated modes for understanding how

owner‐permission is what determines absolute decreases, or increases, in property value. As such,

the notion of graffiti vandalism within frames such as Criminal Damage ideally needs to be better

considered in regard to evidence of communities and contexts affected, rather purely only looking at

material forms of interventions on a micro‐level and permission‐dependent model. As Kurt Iveson

suggests, “one person’s interpretation of vandalism is another person’s affirmation of life in the city”.

He emphasizes that we now need smarter strategies around how to handle such disagreement or

difference (Iveson, 2008), rather than assuming that all take the same view.

In Scotland, illegal graffiti can be classified two separate criminal offences. Firstly, the common law

offence of 'malicious mischief'. Secondly, section 52 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland)

Act 1995, as a form of vandalism. In terms of that section: "any person who, without reasonable

excuse, willfully or recklessly destroys or damages any property belonging to another shall be guilty

of the crime of vandalism."

Weighting of the damage

As a phenomenon that has social implications, including the fact of the average age of offenders, and

can be interpreted in a number of ways, the need of weighting criteria is very important, in order to

avoid some unwanted consequences. In Spain, Austria and Germany the usability of the good after

graffiti is an important criterion to consider the importance of the damage, established by




jurisprudence in Germany, and in the same way in Spain in a first stage, being introduced lately in the

Criminal Code by the creation of the defacement misdemeanor. In the case of Austria it is regulated

literally on article 125 of the Criminal Code that includes the defacement felony, within the other

possibilities. We find in this sense an important delimitation of the kinds of damage, which will

represent the most important criteria when establishing the qualification and punishment of graffiti.

Regarding the existence of minor offences, only in Spain felony and misdemeanor are distinguished.

In the UK these legal institutions (felony and misdemeanor) were merged into a unique type in the

60´s when it regards to criminal law in general, but there is a distinction between 'malicious mischief'

and “vandalism offence” which would represent the same differentiation. In Austria and Germany

graffiti always qualifies as felony. Germany introduces the concept of the graffiti being “not

significant and “not only temporary” in order to introduce indicators. These distinctions are

important when dealing with punishment and rehabilitation of social conducts, since they introduce

weighting criteria for deliberation of the judge.

In the case of Germany, the legal criteria to consider the level of damage and so the weighting of the

punishment is related to the words “substantial” and “permanent”. These can be seen as correctives

in order to prevent an excessive use of the fact criminal damage. The first one, understood as

“non…” refers to the intensity of the changed appearance while the second one focuses on the

temporal persistence of the act. One problem is that the intensity or dimension of a change may vary

greatly with the respective point of view. Already a small tag on an exterior wall may be a big change

for the proprietary but is probably almost not noticeable for a passerby.

Less difficult is the term “not only temporary” (as for permanent). Important here is that not the

“real durability” but the “potential durability” is the decisive factor. For example if the proprietary

removes a graffiti (sprayed with persistent paint) from his object one day after it got sprayed, the

real durability is only temporary but the potential durability is not only temporary as the graffiti

would have been there persistently without the effort of the proprietary. What matters is that the

graffiti had the potential and would have been persistent and therefore has to be classified as not

only temporary. On the other hand, graffiti has to be classified as only temporary if it disappears on

its own in a short time or could be removed with little effort. In this case, little effort includes the

usage of basic tools like detergents that are common in every household (Kruger, 2009).

Furthermore an extensive piece on a bus shelter can hardly be treated in the same way as a small tag

on a skyscraper. According to this it is emphasized that objective and appropriate criterions should

be used. This includes that the size of the – in our case – graffiti has to be compared with the size of

the object. Referring to the previous example this would mean that a tag on a skyscraper could be

classified as insignificant while the piece on a bus shelter could be seen as a not insignificant change

as it is covering a major part of the object. Further criterions are the place – if the wall is already

covered with plenty of graffiti – and the visibility of the graffiti and therefore its perception of and

effect on the public. Despite all these criterions there stays a certain scope how to classify the

intensity of a special graffiti or in general the changing of an object (Kruger, 2009).




In Spain, a way of weighting the damage when it was purely aesthetic was the introduction in the

Criminal Code establishes (article 626) of the defacement misdemeanor, which has since then

represented a large number of the graffiti offences. The punishment for these behaviours would be

punished by permanent localization from 2 to 6 days, and a 10 to 20 days fine.

Article 626 Spanish Criminal Code (SCC):

“Those who causes defacement to moveable assets or real estate that is public or privately owned, without due authorisation from the authorities or their owners, shall be punished with the penalty of permanent traceability from two to six days or three to nine days of community service”.

On the year 2010, the Criminal Code included on article 626 both moveable assets and real estate.

This change, together with the jurisprudential construction of the concept of “damage”, has

represented and important change when it comes to trains and busses. Until then, graffiti was

considered “damage” on this kind of transport. If the graffiti painting damages the moveable asset or

real estate in the sense interpreted by the jurisprudence, then there will be a “damage

misdemeanor” of article 625, when it does not overpass the amount of 400 EUR or a “damage

felony” of article 263 if it goes beyond this amount.

Ex officio prosecution

When we find ourselves in the scope of Criminal law we have to remember that prosecution is

always ex officio, and so an investigation by police and judicial authorities is going to happen

regardless of the will of the parts. However, graffiti as a peculiar form of damage to goods falls in the

category that allows the “perdón del ofendido”. We have to remember, as previously mentioned that

the owner of the good can grant permission after the graffiti has been done, and so it will represent a

form of legalization.

In Spain it is important to mark that the Citizens Security Law Project approved by the Congress on

July 11th 2014 (not in force), introduces some new facts both to the criminal law and administrative

law regulations of graffiti. While until now criminal offences could only be prosecuted by Public

Security Corps, from now on also other security bodies, and even the Private security actors, which

have been given the Public authority status as for the intervention in the case of offences related to

painting. Until the present their role was limited to the determination of in flagrante activity, but

they were not allowed to take any further action in this regard. This has changed by both the new

Private Security Act on 2013 and the mentioned Citizens Security Act. Regardless of the relation

between the notion of Security and the Criminal Law, this Act does also contemplate the sanctions

corresponding to administrative infractions when the behaviour cannot be considered a criminal

offence.




Punishment

Penalties are extremely different from one country to the other. We could say that it is specially

tough for the major damages in Austria, when penalty can be up to five years prison. On the opposite

end of the scale we find the very low punishments, as the 3 to 9 days of community services

established by Spanish Criminal Code.

Table 12: Differences between countries’ punishments

Country Highest imprisonment penalty Lowest imprisonment

penalty

Fine

Austria 5 years Up to 6 months Up to 360 days

Germany Up to 2 years Financial penalty

Spain 2‐6 days of permanent

traceability or 3 to 9 days of

community service

1 to 3 years Up to 24 months

UK Up to 3 months of prison Up to £2.500

Age would always represent a fact when talking about graffiti and its punishment. Parental liability in

this sense should be taken into consideration.

Damage compensation

Once understood the criminal legal framework of graffiti, as for the correction of a behavior, we have

to remember damage has been inflicted to a good, and the owner has to be then compensated in

order to reestablish the situation previous to graffiti spraying. Depending on the owner of the good

being public or private, compensations are articulated through the civil or the administrative bodies

or jurisdictions or bodies. This aspect is also very close in the four countries, with small

differentiations mainly with regard to competent institution and procedures. What is common to all

of them however, is the fact that the victim has to take initiative to claim its rights. All countries

contemplate civil compensation for private owners through the regular rules of the own legal system

for damages. When it comes to Public administration as the victim of the offence Spain and the UK

establish fines in order to compensate damage to public goods. These fines are regulated in

administrative instruments that are articulated in administrative regulations and will be studied later

in this report.

In Germany compensations for the caused damage are only contemplated within the context of a

civil process. Thereby it is neither here nor there whether the aggrieved party is a private owner, a

company or a municipality. If a graffito is not considered as a criminal damage, there is no further

prosecution by the authorities concerning the graffito (but maybe because of accompanied




infractions such as trespass). Nevertheless, the perpetrator is still responsible for the caused damage.

In a separate civil process, the aggrieved party has the right to claim the damage that has been

caused to its property.

As it comes out, a clear definition of when an object is damaged is very critical and therefore has

been a point of difference. The jurisdiction and also the majority of the academic research are

following the theory “damage of the material” but referring to graffiti – and as already briefly

mentioned at the introduction – the difference between direct and indirect damage is a critical point.

According to the varying ingredients of the paint and the different consistencies of the sprayed

surfaces, there is no general form of damage caused by graffiti. And in the most cases it was not

possible to prove that the graffiti damaged the material of the surface directly. Therefore the Federal

Court (“Bundesgerichtshof BGH”) putted the indirect damage of the material on the same level as

the direct damage, in order to extend the prosecution of graffiti sprayers. Thereby indirect damages

included all inescapable damages to the surface caused during the cleaning process.

But this solution of the BGH provided new difficulties. On the one hand was the question in which

way the perpetrator was able to estimate the future risks of damaging the surface during a possible

cleaning process and if he took that risk on purpose. On the other hand there was now a difference

between graffiti that had already been removed and those that were still visible. The first one could

be treated as a criminal damage (in order the cleaning process caused any damage), while the second

one could not (Mogg, 2007).

According to these problems a juridical classification of graffiti was very difficult what led to a lack of

protection of the proprietaries – especially in case of easily removable graffiti. Furthermore the

jurisdiction came to different results concerning comparable cases. This was very questionable,

especially regarding the principle of equality and leads to the conclusion that the judicial practice was

not able to solve the problem of illegal graffiti in an appropriate way (Kim, 2013).

In Austria victims can also sue offenders for civil liability, through the general regime for damage

compensation regulated on §1293 of the Austrian Civil Code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch,

ABGB).

In the case of Spain these offences are always accompanied by the correspondent attached civil

liability, which will derivate in compensation (between individuals) or fine (against Public

administration). The legal framework for the civil liability against private owners, is the general rule

on damages as regulated in the Spanish Civil Code, article 1.902:

Art. 1.902. The person who, as a result of an action or omission, causes damage to another by his fault or negligence shall be obliged to repair the damaged caused.

When the damaged goods are public, we find the widest dispersion of regulations mentioned in the

first place and very much linked with the different protected rights and the territorial and thus




asymmetric competence distribution in the Spanish governance levels. As for the State level we find

three different Statutes: the Citizens Security Law (not in force), a Law Project, which was approved

on July 11th 2014 and has not been published yet on the Official Bulletin of the State (BOE in the

Spanish acronym), the Public Property Act (Ley del Patrimonio Público), dated 2003 and the Law

7/1985 providing the Basis for Local Regulation, last time amended in 2013.

In the UK If the value of the damage is less than ￡5,000, the penalty is a maximum fine of ￡2,500

and/or three months imprisonment (Section 33[1] Magistrates' Court Act 1980) and the court may

also make a Compensation Order. “Aiding or abetting the act of graffiti and other vandalism” attracts

the same penalty. It is unclear however how consistently this has been applied, for example, to

shopkeepers who sell spray cans to minors/youths. Possessing equipment with intent to cause

damage is also an offence in the UK and, if intent can be proven to the court, a spray can would be

included as such equipment. English common or case law would be different from how it is handled

in Roman law‐based countries, for example, France.

The Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 also includes a provision that allows the police to issue a

fixed penalty notice to a person aged 18 years or older found committing an act of criminal damage.

The consultation paper that preceded the legislation commented that only minor examples of this

offence would be suitable for a fixed penalty.

Graffiti attached to other offences

In all four countries, if the content of graffiti involves any other conduct related to honour, image,

terrorism and other hatred behaviours graffiti will then be judged as an aggravated offence.

As regards Germany in case the graffiti holds the public incitement to perform criminal activities

(§282 StGB) or sedition/hate speech (called “Verhetzung”) §282 (imprisonment up to two years) and

283 (imprisonment up to two years) of the criminal code could also be taken into account. In case an

offender also defies to be arrested by the police §269 (obstructing a police officer in the course of his

duty) of the criminal code can become relevant.

Besides the criminal code offenders can also be criminally and civilly sued for trespass (unlawfully

entry to somebody else’s property).

5.2 Link between graffiti and ASBO or incivility

Either as a criminal offence or an administrative infraction graffiti makes part of the ASB or incivilities

both in their common definition and by their inclusion in the laws regulating those behaviours. It is

interesting to note that we are not talking then in general about isolated conducts, but they are

expected to relate to other acts that could constitute also criminal offences or not, and are always

related to living in a community. Regulated in security and coexistence norms, it is also for that

reason that ASB and incivilities have been traditionally included in the civic education and/or

informal responses.




Legal framework for ASB or incivility

As mentioned before, graffiti is not only a form of damaging goods, but a social phenomenon very

much related to coexistence. These lines of work exceed the purely considered criminal damage, and

need of responses, usually articulated in a proximity policy, that would in general be assumed at a

local level. For this aim, the control of ASB or incivilities that would affect residents in an area,

regulations and policies are issued in order to control the unwanted behaviours. That it is more or

less contemplated by authorities will very much depend on the municipal traditions of every country.

For example in Austria there is not a large body of administrative regulations, since the ASB or

incivility exclusively qualifies as a criminal offence. The main actions we find at an administrative

level regard to a better preventive and corrective approach.

In the case of German law there are no such categories as “Anti‐social behavior” or “incivility”. Only

in the case that graffiti can be classified as “criminal damage” according to §303, a criminal

prosecution is possible. If not, only a civil process is possible in order to provide compensations for

the victim. The German law does not provide other classifications. Also the criminal practice sees

graffiti only as a form of criminal damage as for example in the “Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik” (PKS)

graffiti crimes are counted to the field “criminal damage in streets, on paths and places”.

We can however observe that the German Criminal Code establishes offences in relation to traffic

and civilian security, which could very well match the response to some basics in the pacific

coexistence. On Section 145 (Abuse of emergency phones; tampering with means of accident

prevention and first aid) we find penalties for those who (2) whosoever intentionally or knowingly

1. removes, defaces or distorts the meaning of warning or prohibition signs which serve to prevent

accidents or common danger; or 2. removes, alters or renders unusable protective equipment which

serves to prevent accidents or common danger, or rescue equipment designed for rendering

assistance during accidents or common danger, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding two

years or a fine unless the act is punishable under section 303 or section 304.

The cases of Spain and the UK are paradigmatic by the level of local administration regulations that

contemplate ASB or incivilities. The Spanish legal framework at an administrative level for the

prevention and control of these behaviours includes the Citizens Security Law and a large number of

administrative regulations on civic coexistence. The mentioned Citizens Security Law places graffiti,

still without literally mentioning it, in the heart of ASB or incivility regulations. In the new law Project

to be approved by the Parliament in the next months, defacement of goods is considered as a minor

infraction “when not constitutive of felony or misdemeanor”.

In the scope of administrative control we also find that the Public Property Act does then regulate

the ASB or incivilities against Spanish State owned goods. In this sense we have to differentiate with

the studied felony against Historical heritage goods, since not all public properties have a cultural

interest of value. It also needs to be differentiated from the Municipal regulations that protect the

assets of the municipalities that are actually the main public property stakeholders in their territory.




Law 7/1985 providing the Bases for Local Regulation has a special role in the regulation of graffiti

punishment by administrative bodies or tribunals, since it acts as a Framework Law to all regulations

established by Local Governments. The need for a State regulation is due to the Legality Principle

that obliges categorization of the infractions and sanctions to be established only by Parliamentary

Act. As a “bases act” this dependence however of the Local regulations must not be understood in

absolute terms, but as a mean of legitimacy that can be modulated by the municipal legislator

(Ortuño Rodríguez, 2009). Law 7/1985 providing the Bases for Local Regulation enumerates ASB

susceptible of being punished by Local administrations.

Local governments in Spain have regulated graffiti actions following the same approach as the rest of

regulations that is the prohibition of graffiti and other type of paintings in public goods and spaces,

including transports, unless it consists of artistic murals authorized by the public administration. The

big difference between our municipalities is the amount of the penalties that apply to those who

infringe this prohibition and how do they define minor and serious infractions.

Table 13: Differences between some Spanish municipalities ‘punishments

Municipality Minor infractions Serious infractions

Barcelona < 750€ 750.01 – 1.500€

Madrid 300 – 3.000€ 600 – 6.000

Sant Boi de Llobregat 150€ 150€

San Sebastian de los Reyes (all considered serious

infractions)

750€ ‐ 1.500€

The UK system has a similar approach but, of course, articulated on the Common Law, and more

mediator and managerial methodology of their local administration. As the most important

instrument we find the Anti Social Behaviour Act is principally about controlling culturally unaccepted

human behaviours. ASB offences include littering, people being drunk or rowdy in public spaces or

drug dealing, as well as graffiti (Office for National Statistics UK, 2012b). This is completed by the

Crime and Disorder Act 1998 introduced the first Anti‐Social Behaviour Orders that could be applied

to anyone over the age of 10 years causing harassment, alarm or distress to others through his or her

actions.

In March 2001 the UK Government supported local authority schemes to tackle litter, and set out a

new code of conduct to reduce takeaway litter and an advisory group to review existing legislation.

Many local authorities already had litter wardens and issue ￡25 fixed penalty notices to those

responsible for litter. Magistrates have the power to fine individuals up to ￡2,500 for non‐payment.

In response to increasing public concern, the Anti Social Behaviour Unit was set up in the Home

Office in January 2003. That Unit has developed an Anti Social Behaviour Action Plan and

disseminated good practice for tackling such behaviour through Anti Social Behaviour Orders and

Acceptable Behaviour Contracts.




The 2003 Anti Social Behaviour bill has the objective of providing the tools for practitioners and

agencies to tackle anti social behaviour. It contains measures drawn up from across five Government

Departments and aims to clarify, streamline and reinforce the powers available to practitioners.

The department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) categorises ‘Graffiti and Fly‐Posting’ as a

single anti‐social offence, which can attract fixed penalty notices (FPN) of between ￡50‐80 GBP,

with the default set at ￡75 GBP, under section s.43 of the ASB Act 2003. The legislation s.96 CNEA in

fact groups penalties for “graffiti and fly‐posting” within “Litter; Litter Clearing Notices; Street Litter

Control; Notices; Unauthorized distribution of literature; Graffiti and fly‐posting; Dog Control Orders”

(DEFRA, 2006).

Under 16's in Scotland are not permitted to buy aerosol paint cans under the Anti‐social Behaviour

Scotland Act 2004.

In Northern Ireland, graffiti is grouped with fly‐posting and can be prosecuted under The Clean

Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 (the 2011 Act), which strengthens the

powers available to district councils to deal with a range of local environmental quality problems

including graffiti and fly‐posting. Here graffiti is classed either as an act of ‘defacement’, or as illegal

‘painting, making marks or displaying advertisements on roads; or as a contravention of the Planning

(Northern Ireland) Order (1991).

Local authorities and transport authorities in the UK are responsible for cleaning up graffiti from

public and semi‐public buildings and fixtures. Local authorities can also clean it from private buildings

and can bill the owner for the work. Where a private owner considers graffiti to have caused damage

to their property, they would typically be eligible to take out civil proceedings for compensation, and

if a local administration considers that private property owners have not dealt with instances of

offensive graffiti adequately, they can also intervene. In practice however, details on how this has

worked out are varied and difficult to access, or use for exemplars.

In all countries, and due to the nature of the graffiti paintings, in a large number of cases, the

perpetrators remain unknown. It is then the job of the Local police to identify the authors of graffiti.

The drawings and writing have their style, their tag (signature). We could then say there is an at least

“graphic identity”. Then, as it would be in any other kind of prosecuted action, the police graphology

experts would conduct their investigation. The corps is developing every day new forms of

identification and tools, such as databases, that help their work. Once the author has been

determined, the administrative sanction will be initiated by the local administration.

Socio‐legal approach to punishment as a response to ABS or incivility

Punishment of graffiti as we have studied up to this moment is mainly based on damage, but we can

also find responses to graffiti in ASB and incivility control instruments. In all cases there is an ongoing

debate on the measures adopted in this sense, and an aim for good practices and methodologies to




be able to approach the phenomenon in the best possible way. Main issues arising would be the

effectiveness of the penalties and policies, and the possibility of working with sprayers in a way that

would be most favourable for all actors, and mainly in the case of minor and youth offenders. As

observed in 2.2.1 the majority of the writers is rather young. The reports are talking about youth and

children between 12 and 22 years olds. Those are age groups specially protected by law. That is the

reason for which punishment of the ASB or incivility is not a peaceful debate.

In general if the behaviour is defined as a minor ASB, and so an appropriated penalty is to be

established, it will be decided by the judge, and articulated through the ministries of justice and

social welfare as a socio‐educative tool. In this line we can also include the informal responses

observed in every country to fight against youth incivility, and that will offer a different kind of

punishment to graffiti depending mainly on age, the seriousness of the damage, and some other

aspects that could be considered by police, public administration or courts. Generally speaking all

interviewees are familiar with the legal framework in force.

The position of offenders

In general the legal framework regarding punishing graffiti vandalism is perceived very differently

among the interviewed actors. One of the main problems is the fact that offenders do not

understand their behaviour as illegal or anti‐social. The lack of sense of responsibility can be a serious

problem when facing conflict with law, since punishment is designed to make the person reflect on

the actions and take conscience of the consequences.

Most of the writers don´t see their behaviour as anti‐social. As it was stated by German sprayers, for

them graffiti is something they do for themselves but not against others (GG4) or at least for the

reason to get attention (GG2). Further mentioned aspects are that graffiti also provides the

possibility to escape from society and their daily world (GG1). And although the writers know that

what they do is basically rejected by society the common sense of the interviews was that it isn´t

their purpose to act against society but to live out their passion which includes some sort of conflict

with society.

For example in the case of Spain, as we have seen when studying the Criminal Law response to

graffiti, the code contemplates community work as the lowest punishment for antisocial behaviour in

the case of damage offences. The legal provision does not contemplate an age margin for this

solution. But a condition for this kind of informal remedies is the acceptance by the offender of their

guilt, and the willingness to participate in this kind of measures. That seems not to be that obvious in

most of the cases86.

It is for those reasons that the community of graffiti writers are totally in disagreement with the

current legal framework and all the actions taken to criminalize graffiti (GE1, GE5). The majority of

86 Source: “Decenas de menores compensan sus delitos con trabajos sociales cada año”, http://elcorreoweb.es/2013/06/02/decenas‐de‐menores‐compensan‐sus‐delitos‐con‐trabajos‐sociales‐cada‐ano/ [02.06.2014].




the writers think that in Spain they are more punished than abroad, while one considers that it is the

contrary. He states that foreign writers come to Barcelona because the consequences of painting

graffiti are less strict and there are more opportunities to paint: “There is graffiti tourism in

Barcelona” (GE4). Writers outline the impact of Barcelona’s civic ordinance (2005): fines have been

increasing rapidly. “I have been fined for painting in a school with the teacher’s permission. You need

the owner’s permission and also the City’s hall authorization. You can’t paint without the City’s hall

permission; nowhere” (GE4). Graffiti writers think that graffiti should not be forbidden or

criminalized since it is a natural dimension of human beings. Writers differentiate clearly the roles of

safety guards and policemen. They are aware that only policemen have real power to punish them.

However, this will change with the new Security law approved by the Spanish parliament.

In the UK the findings of a series of focus groups set up to explore public attitudes to youth crime are

described in The Public Attitudes to Youth Crime report (Jacobson, Jessica and Kirby, 2012). The

topics included respondents’ views on the extent of crime and anti‐social behaviour (ASB) in the local

community and the perceived causes of these; restorative justice; and volunteering and the role of

the community in preventing crime and in supporting youth justice. Graffiti is mentioned as typical

youth crime and anti‐social behaviour. Part of the focus groups was also scenario testing. One

scenario was based on a graffiti offence by an adolescent person. Interestingly, the document

describes four themes that recurred in participants’ comments about the different scenarios

discussed:

• Participants felt it was important for young perpetrators of crime and ASB to be taught to

understand the consequences of their actions and to make amends.

• Many participants were concerned about the potentially damaging long‐term impact of a

criminal record on a young person’s prospects, and saw this as a reason for adopting

informal rather than formal responses.

• Participants often considered that a first offence merits an informal or lesser formal

response by the authorities, but that tougher action is required for repeat misdemeanours.

• Lastly, some participants wanted young offenders to experience a degree of

“embarrassment‟ or “humiliation‟ as part of the disposal that they receive. (Jacobson,

Jessica and Kirby, 2012: 3).

Interviewee PLEUK2 provides an example that illustrates that young offenders may not be aware of

the consequences of their actions “they had not really taken on‐board the problems and pains it

would cause”. The interviewee argues that it is through the justice system it is possible to provide a

“restorative justice”. According to the example PLEUK2 gives, when young offenders who did not

committed a graffiti crime before got caught vandalising, and had to face the victims of their crime

the young offenders were apologetic, “They met the victims and the boys [offenders] were (...) sort

of very sorry…”. However, AUK1 looking at the case studies and the strategies they developed as the

Public Administration in Brighton, UK, argues that there are problems with the legal framework and

some of the prevention techniques being utilised. From a public administration point of view AUK2




notes that there are limitations to the legal framework, “…we do prosecute people if we find them

and if they are persistent offenders, but we actually find that the street cleansing work is the best

way of preventing things, rather than the legal system“. From the graffiti writers perspective, GUK3

adds that criminalisation process is something inevitable and considered as a right of passage. The

interviewee describes the criminalisation process as a means to claim a position. However, also

states that it is not a preferable option. GUK3 states:

“[you always have] The law … at the back of your mind if you are an active graffiti writer (...) think a lot of people around me always did and then I had numerous cases (...) when they're going through the courts they hang over you a lot and affect you personally and professionally. (...) Actually, I had a couple of times when I was really considering... there were quite sort of epiphany moments, I suppose but certainly the last time I was caught that was it. That was the final... I got so close to going to jail that I stopped” (GUK3).

From a social work perspective it was mentioned and it is the common understanding that the

influence on someone’s live who got caught is very strong as fines are high. Nevertheless the system

has to be accepted (SWCA1). It would make sense to establish opportunities for offenders to provide

direct compensation to victims (not just financial compensation but also cleaning or social work).

Stronger punishments in general don’t seem to be useful. In cases of heavy damage to private

property young people can get extremely high debts which lead them to private bankruptcy which

finally also means that victims don’t get any compensation.

The position of institutions

Representatives of public administration had different views on the issue. One mentioned that the

Austrian law is too weak and because of this lots of illegal writers from other countries come to

Austria (AA1). Another one mentioned that in case of young sprayers punishment should not be too

hard especially when they didn’t harm the health of other persons (AA2). The third representative

had not enough information on the legal framework to answer to the question (AA3).

Public transport representative see punishments in Austria as very strong compared to other

European countries (OA3). However as one points out in general this is ok another one thinks that

punishments shouldn’t be too high and in general the compensation for cleaning costs would be

enough (OA2). There were also basic considerations to make use of other forms of compensation

besides fines or imprisonment (i.e. cleaning the areas writers have illegally sprayed). The main

problem here is that in most cases it needs trained personnel that are able to handle the chemicals

and need profound knowledge on materials and surfaces. Including the offender in this process

would probably produce even more costs (OA3).

In Germany only a representative of the transport sector (OG1) stated that they locate graffiti in the

field of general vandalism or behaviour that could be described as anti‐social when they do some

research on the perceived security of their customers. In Spain, transport operators, mostly those




who are really on the side of graffiti conceived as an offence and vandal action consider that the

current legal framework is insufficient and should be yet more penalizing (OE1, OE2, OE3).

From perspective of the law enforcement agencies it was mentioned that stronger punishments

won’t work and increased surveillance to catch more offenders would be ethically questionable, as

public areas have to be totally surveillance (PLEA1). In case of huge damages and putting danger to

other citizens pre‐trial custody is justifiable. However, “normal” damage to property shouldn’t be

treated similar as criminal assault (PLEA2). As indicated in the Austrian case:

“There were also basic considerations to make use of other forms of compensation besides fines or imprisonment. For example, as compensation offenders could clean the areas they have illegally sprayed. The main problem here is that in most cases it needs trained personnel that are able to handle the chemicals and need profound knowledge on materials and surfaces. Including the offender in this process would probably produce even more costs” (OA3).

It has also been argued how inconvenient it can be that offenders acquire this profound knowledge

of the graffiti cleaning they can improve their techniques by experimenting with new materials.

5.3 Discussion on problems of legal framework

The main discussions on the problems of legal framework derivate, as commented in the

introduction, of the multiple facets of graffiti. If it was not for the socio‐artistic recognition of this

phenomenon, it will be plainly considered as a property offence and so debates if existing would be

limited and of other nature.

To this point we have examined graffiti on the negative side of the legal system, but we also need to

consider graffiti as a tool of socio‐educational and artistic expression, which has also been supported

by the public authorities in the framework of public policies for culture, youth and integration. In this

sense we find the paradigmatic case of Madrid’s City Hall, that after establishing tougher regulations

on this issue, and following a strict prosecution of a group of writers that parodied the local

politicians in their work, paradoxically awarded one of its members (“Young creators Award of the

City of Madrid”, Premio Jóvenes creadores de la Ciudad de Madrid). And these are the kind of cases

that are legitimating the ASB or incivility by the high representatives of the legislation municipal

bodies. We also find that the art, fashion, audiovisual and media businesses have been intensively

promoting this kind of art during the last years, building in this sense not only legitimating graffiti

itself, but the incentive of this activity at all levels of society.

Given this paradoxical situation, we find a tacit recognition of the creator related to his work. This

leads us to open the debate towards intellectual property definitions if graffiti is to be considered an

art. The debate is on the possibility of discussing intellectual property as understood by the law. The

door is now open to extremely disparate qualifications of the same act. As Celia Lerman (Visiting IP

Scholar, Kernochan Center for Law, Media & the Arts, Columbia Law School) says:




“We should still grant protection to illegal graffiti because the wrongdoing (…) is not relevant to the copyright of the work itself. Copyright should be neutral towards Works crated by illegal means” (Lerman, 2014: 2).

But we have to clarify as soon as possible in this debate that, coming from Roman law tradition; all

occidental legal systems recognize the right of accession, meaning that the work of art automatically

belongs to the owner of the good, and not to the artist.

Even if it is not usually the main objective of graffiti as an activity, there is an ongoing debate on the

intellectual property and copyright of the works. Regarding the copyright protection, the first thing

the graffiti writers should express to give a legal answer is “protection towards whom or what”

because graffiti is not expressly included in the Spanish Copyright Law and the regulation does not fit

together with the features of this type of art. What is commonly accepted in every country is that

graffiti is to be considered a work of art as for the definition given at every country law.

Intellectual property as a moral right of the author is recognized when a certain artistic value is

recognized to the work. However, that does not involve the property of the graffiti by the writer

since it makes part of the good, and so belongs to its owner. It is very important to clarify as soon as

possible in this debate that, coming from Roman law tradition, all occidental legal systems recognize

the right of accession, meaning that the work of art automatically belongs to the owner of the good

on which it has been created, and not to the artist. And as such “the third party is free to do

whatever they want with it; they can remove it, destroy it, or sell it on as they please” (Copyrights

and Creators, 27 May 2014).

Reproduction rights will depend on the nature of graffiti itself and the will of the owner of the good.

When placed in public goods there is not possibility for the graffiti writer to claim reproduction

rights. When placed in a private property it will depend on the will of its owner, since as we have

seen, the work belongs to that person or company from the very first moment.

The research shows that this is not one of the main debates in relation to graffiti, since the numbers

of cases in which intellectual property rights are claimed by writers are scarce, and usually related to

highly recognized artists that would see it as a mean of income and reputation.

However as we can see on the Intellectual Property regulations of the studied countries, there would

always be a margin for Copyright Protection, coming from the common rules for “works of art”. In

Austria there is hardly any information available that touches graffiti and copyright law. However,

graffiti can be protected by copyright when it complies with the following legal requirements: the

Federal Law on Copyright in Works of Literature and Art and on Related Rights (Copyright Act) (as last

amended in 1998).

In Germany a graffito is protected by copyright as far as it has a certain threshold of originality § 2I

Nr.4, II UrhG (German copyright act). This means that the graffito must have some kind of individual

intellectual character. Therefore, very simple writings are not protected by copyright as they have

only very little originality, although the line is blurring.




For the case that a writer sprays the property of someone else without any permission, there is a

conflict between the writer´s right as the originator §§ 14, 25 UrhG and the rights of the proprietor

Art. 14 GG (Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany) and §§ 823, 1004 BGB (German Civil

Code). But in general the decision is made for the benefit of the proprietor because the graffito is

characterized as so called “obtruded art”. This means that the proprietor is confronted with the piece

of art without his knowing or willing. Therefore, it is his right to get rid of the piece of art or even to

sell it.

In Spain there are two types of rights, within copyright: the moral rights (article 14 of the Spanish

Copyright Act –SCA‐) and the exploitation rights (articles 17 to 21 SCL). Moral rights refer, on the one

hand, to the right of the author to be recognized as such and to require the respect of the integrity of

the work, and, on the other hand, the right to decide over any divulgation, modification or take back

the work. Exploitation rights include reproduction (by any means), distribution (sale, rent,

borrowing), public communication and transformation (meaning any new work that arises from

modification or adaptation of the primary one).

In the UK attention on legal and illegal graffiti‐related copyright and intellectual property rights (IP)

appears to have gained increasing momentum over the past decade, and in the UK particularly

perhaps following a boom of ‘street art’ and associated events since 2008 (including, Cans Festival,

Street Art at Tate Modern, Banksy vs Bristol Museum, UpFest, SeeNoEvil, and others), which brought

with it increased focus on and demand for reproductions of graffiti‐related imagery. The UK

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988) determines that copyright can be applicable for both legal

and illegal graffiti. The act defines that copyright exists among “artistic works”, in parallel with other

categories, irrespective of artistic quality. While painting is not specifically mentioned, “graphic

works” do form part of the category of artistic works, which allow for original acts of graffiti to be

potentially protected against copying or reproduction. This law states that copyrights are assigned to

creator at time of creation and can be passed or licensed to others for use. The Copyright and

Creators forum describes that:

“... even where the graffiti has been illegally created, as is often the case, it is not necessarily barred from copyright protection as the UK copyright legislation doesn’t take into account the purpose behind the work when determining whether it qualifies for protection. […] Indeed, some commentators have even suggested that graffiti ‘tags’ could be protected in this manner as long as their presentation displays enough creativity to constitute an artistic, rather than literary, work. ”

In all cases, works that have made public can be used by anyone, and that right is contemplated by

all four legal frameworks, that recognize the right of the viewer to copy and reproduce any art work

that stands in a public space.

In Austria article 8 of Copyright Act establishes that: A work shall be deemed to have been made

public if it has been made available to the public with the authorization of the right holder. Article 9

completes by introducing the publishing factor: (1) A work shall be deemed published if, with the




authorization of the right holder, copies in sufficient numbers have been made available for sale or

circulated to the public.

It is commonly accepted in all countries that there would be no doubt on this Copyright for the

viewer when the work of art is not only made public, but “it is in a place used as a public

thoroughfare“:

Austria article 54 Copyright Law. (1) It shall be permissible

5. to reproduce, distribute, present in public by means of optical devices and broadcast works of architecture after their construction or other works of art permanently located in a place used as a public thoroughfare; this provision shall not extend to the replication of a work of architecture and the reproduction of a painting or a graphic work for the purpose of placing such reproduction permanently in a place of such kind, or to the three‐dimensional reproduction of a three‐dimensional work.

In Spain Graffiti can be object of copyright since it joins the two main requirements of art. 10 SCA:

original artistic creation and expression by any mean or support (street walls, public or private, or

public transports, mainly). Nevertheless it is an artistic expression that will have a limited application

of the copyrights due to its own nature. First of all the support belongs to a third party that will

acquire it by accession. Another case is the use of public space, since it makes their work legally

opened to reproduction, distribution and communication by means of drawings, paintings photos

and others by any person.

Article 35.2 of the Copyright Act.

Works permanently located in parks, streets, squares or other public thoroughfares may be reproduced, distributed and communicated freely through paintings, drawings, photography and audiovisual processes.

Therefore graffiti artists will have transformation right of their works but limited exploitation rights

because he/she does not own the support of their work and the only way to distribute, reproduce or

communicate their work is by photographing, painting or drawing it, or, as established in the

abovementioned article, by using other means of audiovisual processes for it.

As an example of infringement of reproduction and, possibly, transformation rights of a graffiti work,

we find the case of the swimwear of the Spanish team in the Beijing Olympic Games. As Markus

Balser states in the article published by LawBlog (LawBlog, 2014):

“When an American friend sent him photos from Beijing the day after the games closed, Cantwo [German graffiti artist] didn’t believe his eyes. “The piece on the suits looked very familiar,” Cantwo told the Law Blog. “Despite some colour changes: To my mind the cartoon‐style character was clearly taken from an artwork I sprayed on a wall legally in Muenster in 2001”.




The problem of this infringement is not to take a photo in order to reproduce the work, but to

transform it (change some colours) and to make a swimwear with it because these actions go beyond

what it is permitted by article 35 of the Copyright Act.

Finally, the artist will always have the right to be recognised as the authors of the work, which will

sometimes be difficult because of the problems of identification that arise of the consequent

illegality of the action and because the use of tags. The problem could be also that if the artist is

recognised as such, there are some economic consequences that have to be respected depending on

the use that a third party is giving to the graffiti.

In Germany when it´s up to taking and commercialize pictures of graffiti, several differences have to

be made that lead to some peculiar cases. A first possibility is that the graffito was not intended for

public showcase and attached authorized on private property. Hereby, the right to take pictures is

limited and the artist or in some cases the proprietor has to agree to its publication.

If a graffito is attached in the public sphere – no matter if legal or illegal – the so‐called freedom of

panorama § 59 UrhG becomes effective. It says that everybody is allowed to take and publicize

pictures of copyrighted works that are visible from public thoroughfares (Wikipedia). So in general, it

is allowed to take and publish pictures of graffiti in the public sphere.

Nevertheless, according to § 13 UrhG the author of the work has the right of being named in case

that a picture of his graffito gets published, as long as he signed the original graffito with his name or

his name is known otherwise. But this seems to be rather important for legal than for illegal graffiti,

as hereby the writers normally don´t sign their graffiti – at least not with their real name

(Wagenknecht, 2011).

In the UK Copyright will automatically come into existence where the requirements are met and will,

except in certain specific circumstances, initially belong to the graffiti artist who authored the work.

As a result copyright can therefore be of some use to these creators, as it grants them a number of

exclusive rights including, most notably, the right to prevent others copying the work without

permission.

However, while copyright allows the graffiti artist to prevent others making copies it does not allow

them to stop others from selling the original, physical embodiment of the art. Most graffiti is painted

onto property that belongs to a third party by accession and, as such, the resulting object remains

the property of that third party. As owner, the third party is free to do whatever they wish with it;

they can remove it, destroy it, or sell it on as they please” (Copyright and Creators, 27 May 2014) .

Interestingly, the contestation to rights over graphic and intellectual property in this context has not

to date shown to carry more weight than cases for rights over material property. The result is that

most graffiti writers do not come forward in attempt to exercise their IP rights over illegally created

instances of graffiti, since they may inadvertently subject themselves to prosecution under the ASB




or Criminal Damage laws, for having created the act(s) they are trying to protect.

Beyond this, while copyright issues continue to present themselves in studies related to graffiti and

may they further appear as significant through the Graffolution project, such topics have not

emerged through the UK interviews conducted. Equally, the WP2.1 literature review conducted did

not reveal them to be explicitly relevant so much as tangentially relevant to Graffolution, at least in

the UK context.




6 CONCLUSIONS

6.1 Graffiti across Europe: a comparison between countries

In this report the influencing factors at cultural and regional levels as well ethical and legal

considerations of graffiti have been studied in Austria, Germany Spain and the United Kingdom of

Great Britain and Northern Ireland ‐ UK). The four participating countries differ in population and

density: Austria is by far the less populated country but is approximately as dense as Spain. In

relation to their territorial structure, they are all decentralized countries, ranging from two federal

states (Austria and Germany) to other recent territorial decentralized forms (Spain in the 1980s and

the UK in the 2000s). They are all urbanized countries but they differ in their internal distribution

(more or less polycentric).

In relation to the structure of public transport facilities, they have in common the existence of

multiple public and private organisms that operate public transport, including high‐speed trains,

regional trains, suburban trains, buses, tramways and subways. The balance and competencies

among different operators has changed to some extent along the XXth century, but overall national,

regional and metropolitan systems of public transportation coexist.

The history and evolution of graffiti in these four countries have similar patterns, although the paces

of development differ. Born in New York subways, the UK was the first country to adopt this form of

social protest in the late 70s, followed by Austria and Germany, while in Spain it started in the early

80s. Graffiti was not only the act of painting a subway; it belonged to a larger Hip Hop movement

including painting, dancing and music. During its first phase of development, graffiti was spread by

mass media, movies and documentaries. A common characteristic is that tagging in more or less

elaborated ways was the starting point. Moreover, graffiti culture started developing in bigger cities,

which witnessed the organisation of the first crew and graffitists communities. In the 1980s, it was

very difficult for graffiti writers to get specialised spray paint for graffiti: the industry of graffiti

painting developed later. By the end of the 1980s, writers from different cities came into contact and

started to swap ideas and to visit each other. The approach to graffiti from public authorities began

to change, passing from permission to considering graffiti a problem. Since the 2000s, graffiti has

been increasing as an artistic movement and the vocabulary linked to the street art concept

increases. There is a progressive integration of graffiti in the art market, with several expositions and

galleries showing street art in the main cities. Both sides of graffiti have become an established

phenomenon that is not expected to disappear in the short term.

Despite being an ever‐present phenomenon in the public sphere, data on graffiti incidents is difficult

to obtain in the countries analysed. Only in Austria and in some parts of Germany graffiti complaints

reported to the police are listed in an own subgroup. In Spain and the UK graffiti are included in

another category such as vandalism or anti‐social behaviour incidents. In the Spanish case, data is

hard to find and mainly comes from public transport operators. Overall, according to data available,

graffiti is an established phenomenon, with major growth in the 1990s and early years of the 2000s.




Data on costs reporting is more common, but the availability differs also between countries. In

addition, there is scarce data on positive impact of graffiti such as its impact on strengthening social

cohesion and building a sense of community.

Regarding the socio‐cultural aspects of the phenomenon graffiti, the research so far brings up that it

is quite difficult to give a general definition of graffiti, but not because of larger differences between

the researched countries, but because of the heterogeneous points of view that vary with the way

the respective person comes in contact with graffiti. But it gets clear that a description of these

“visual elements” often revolves around the two questions concerning their artistic value and the

legality of the attachment.

Referring to that and in agreement with all researched countries, the operators of public transport

services generally understand graffiti as vandalism because of the costs and dangers it causes and

therefore mainly see it as a problem that has to be solved. According to that, there is no difference

made referring to the artistic quality of the graffito, although not all of the representatives decline

graffiti from their personal point of view, but have to take action against it because of their

profession. This divergence between the personal and the professional perception is also observable

for the sector police / law enforcement. Furthermore there is a difference in this sector between the

researched countries, whether all kinds of writings or images are classified as graffiti or only those

that have a clear artistic background.

From the graffiti writers’ points of view, there is no universal definition of graffiti, as they all have

their different styles and ways to engage in graffiti. But there are several aspects, where the

interviewed writers from all countries agree with, as for most of them, graffiti is more than a picture

or a writing on a wall, but also a way of self‐expression, a medium for communication, a lifestyle and

so on… An important fact is, that referring to the legality of graffiti, it seems that most of the writers

don´t deny legal forms but see the illegal graffiti as the “original” one. No consent in the graffiti scene

is about the question whether graffiti also includes the extreme like vandalizing elements (e.g.

scratchwork) and artistic forms (e.g. street art) and in which way segregation would make sense.

As heterogeneous as the different definitions of graffiti are, as varying are also the backgrounds of

the writers. Giving a common threat, it can be stated that graffiti is mostly – but not exclusively – a

youth phenomenon. Although the age when the writers start to engage in graffiti varies between the

researched countries, the differences are not too big, as in general graffiti writing is taken up by

young people in their teens or sometimes early twenties. Thereby the status as a writer can´t be seen

as something static but as a sort of biography that develops with the stages of the writer´s life and

can include a more artistic or professional approach and a turn towards legal forms of graffiti as the

time passes, but also a general denial of graffiti or even some sort of criminal career.

Referring to the gender of the writers, there is a general agreement in all researched countries, that

the large majority of them are male. And although it is stated that females slightly start to engage

more in graffiti, it seems that girls and young women are generally less attracted – especially to the




illegal – graffiti. If this imbalance is furthermore caused by a general discrimination of female writers

in the graffiti scene can´t be approved, as this was affirmed in single cases, but not as a general

phenomenon.

As the reasons for the evolution of the graffiti phenomenon in Europe are not comparable with the

circumstances in the ghettos of New York, also the social backgrounds are of a larger variety and

therefore very heterogeneous in the researched countries and include all social classes – whereby,

for some countries focuses can be identified: e.g. for the UK poorer‐ and middle‐class; for Germany

middle‐ and higher‐class. Determining the writer’s background is difficult. However, it seems that

writers who are more active in street art and less involved in vandalism incidents come from higher

social and educational groups.

For the writers, graffiti is understood both as an individual and a group activity. So next to its self‐

affirming and identity‐establishing function, graffiti also provides the possibility to become a part of

an “exclusive” community – especially for those who see graffiti as a way of life and mentality rather

than just a practice. Thereby the group has the function that it satisfies the paradoxical needs for

affiliation (with like‐minded) and differentiation (from society). Therefore graffiti on the one hand

has the function to be identity‐establishing as it gives the actors the possibility to identify themselves

as graffiti writers and part of the scene while on the other hand it offers them the medium to let the

public know about their identity and to enforce their place in the public sphere. Furthermore, the

affiliation in groups also has the – more practical – reasons that it allows the writers to realize bigger

projects that require more participants and also gives them more security during these projects.

Like the definition of the phenomenon graffiti, does also the estimation of its social impact and social

perception vary with the referring point of view. Nevertheless, there are some similarities that could

be observed for the researched countries. A first one is that the operators of public transport

services estimate the social impact of graffiti as a negative one, as it would lead to a feeling of

insecurity for their passengers. Nevertheless, it is stated – and here they are in common with the

writers – that an artistic and elaborated graffiti is better accepted than a “simple” tag or writing.

Furthermore, many of the writers – but not all of them – pointed out that graffiti can also have many

different forms of positive impacts and therefore does not lead to an automatic decline of the

surrounding area. However, little information exists on the positive effects of graffiti. Graffiti is seen

more critical by the representatives of the transport as well as the police / law enforcement sector.

Referring to the regional aspects of the phenomenon graffiti, it is stated in all researched countries,

that it is predominantly an urban phenomenon and mainly connected to the bigger cities. There are

stated several reasons for this imbalance, that include a generally higher social pressure and lower

anonymity in rural areas; the availability and characteristics of urban spaces regarding tunnels,

metros, walls, bridges and other places attractive for writers; the better visibility of the attached

graffito as there are more densely populated locations.




But it is not only the urban setting itself that influences the selection and extent of graffiti in urban

areas but also the given opportunities in form of the degree of control, so that there are also

differences observable between otherwise similar urban areas. However it has to be taken into

account that in general there is a lack of information regarding the relation between graffiti and rural

areas and a certain methodological “bias” as most of the interviews and other surveys and

documentations focus on city areas.

Despite this distribution of graffiti neither the interviews nor desk research in the four researched

countries point out that there is a specific spatial logic in writing graffiti. Especially because of the

general lack of information there can only be collected single aspects for a spatial logic regarding

writing graffiti, like general assumptions or the identification of single hotspots.

Some actors stated that they identified different logics and modus operandi for example of teenagers

and older writers, as the first ones would mainly write during school holidays, while the grown‐ups,

tend to be more organized and paint according to a plan and usually at night. In general, and as

noted by international literature, graffiti paintings increase at night, during the weekends, and during

Christmas, Easter and summer holidays.

Furthermore, interviewees from Germany, Spain and the UK point to the fact that graffiti can no

longer be understood as a purely local issue confined to each city or country as there are also

international networks between writers from different countries which are forming temporary crews

and going on journeys. Nevertheless, none of the interview partners from the sections state/local

authorities, police/law enforcement or transport systems in the four researched countries

mentioned explicitly the use of so called graffiti maps.

Leaving behind the influential factors, ethical and legal aspects have been examined. As public

transport operators define graffiti as a vandal activity there is no space left to consider paintings as

forms of art in transport facilities. The main prevention strategies deployed are rapid removal of any

form of graffiti as well as multiple surveillance technologies in operation, dominated by CCTV. Their

aim is to identify perpetrators in order to catch them. This identification process has led to many

controversial situations where the aim justifies the means, although these are not desirable or are

even unlawful. Legality alternatives and painting permissions are present in the four countries at

uneven levels. Although legality implies permission, permission is not a sufficient condition for

legality. Legal alternatives seem to be widely accepted (although painting legal can decrease the level

of illegal graffiti, the most of graffiti writers interviewed convey that illegal graffiti is really difficult to

eradicate).

Another controversial matter which is transversal in writers interviews is how graffiti and

advertisement can be seen as counterparts: both (pretend to) have an impact on public space but

they face unequal conditions of acceptance. In this sense, commissioned graffiti is a sort of meeting

point were graffiti artists earn a living painting for a brand or an administration. Graffiti is mistakenly

seen as a youth activity, linked to adolescence and self‐affirmation but the reality shows multiple




backgrounds. However, criminalisation is built on this prejudice and young graffiti artists are the

main target of public transport and police and law enforcement bodies.

It is important to highlight the lack of communication that all stakeholders express between them.

While public sectors declare that legal options are available but they have no means to disseminate

them, graffiti writers found that an advocate of legal graffiti would be both necessary and useful for

the community. This lack of communication is leading to misunderstandings and wrong conceptions

on both sides, and thus, the distance between cat‐and‐mouse players increases.

Ethics of graffiti prevention need to build trust between stakeholders. Understanding each others’

views and needs, building bridges of communication and allocating specific people that can have

dialogues with both parts seems to be crucial. Besides, all the steps need to be done carefully. Trust

is something fragile: while it is very difficult to consolidate, it is really easy to be destroyed. A

platform like Graffolution can be a good space for interlocution and learning on the basis of good

practices. A space for dialogue would serve to express needs and help to find more convenient

solutions for all stakeholders involved to some extent in the phenomenon of graffiti.

It needs to be mentioned how the identification race is a threat to the right to privacy for graffiti

writers. From the different surveillance technologies in operation to the disproportionate amount of

data gathered and the sharing processes that have been documented, it has been clear that

attention needs to be drawn to data protection. Criminals or not, graffiti writers have the right to

preserve their privacy. All efforts put to identification are diminishing this right and even failing with

the European Directives of Data Protection. The Graffolution website can be another exercise of

collaborative knowledge and social media interaction built on the bases of a privacy‐enhancing

technology.

Finally, all studied legal systems suffer, to a larger or small extent, of a dispersion of norms and

remedies when dealing with graffiti. Even if actors, including writers, consider they know the legal

framework and measures affecting this activity, there is a certain lack of legal security. This is caused

by the exponential growth of the phenomenon and the need of testing forms of prevention and

control. We can also understand, by the conclusions shed along the full report, that the security

approach when designing legal instruments might not be the most convenient for the aim of ending

illegal graffiti.

As a social and mainly youth movement, there is a debate in the forms of punishment of graffiti. It

seems to be commonly accepted by all actors that it represents a forced intervention in someone’s

(victim) goods. But on the other hand the writers and society in general understand a certain level of

legitimacy. This is justified either through the social or/and artistic sides of the phenomenon. The

legal systems however do not make the distinction between graffiti and other forms of damage of

goods or ASBO. Some of the punishments, as for example those representing more than two years of

imprisonment, can represent a too taught penalty for young people and might not be the best

solution for them or for society.




The real impact of legalization of graffiti thought “free walls” and other kind of initiatives is unclear.

The idea that “the real graffiti is illegal graffiti” plays against a legal alternative. When studying the

phenomenon it seems there is not much room for a formal solution articulated through rules and

regulations.

All studies related to graffiti in relation to copyright accept there exists protection regarding

intellectual property rights of the author. Whatever the vision of the system is in this sense, the

graffiti writer would only have moral rights on the work. Since the work is done on goods that belong

to other persons, the property of the work will always belong to the owner of that good by accession.

The two confronted rights merge then into one, since both the good and the work belong to the

same owner that will decide about the future of the work.

6.2 Final considerations on aspects and influence factors

Throughout the conclusions we have been highlighting legal and ethical aspects of graffiti, as well as

influencing factors of graffiti at social, cultural and regional level. The following table summarizes

these factors:

Table 14: Influencing factors of writing graffiti at social, cultural and regional level

Factor Dimension Countries observed Social Age: mainly young

Gender: males paint more Education: not relevant Social class: varying Ethnic: not relevant Different perceptions (+/‐) depending on stakeholders

All countries All countries All countries Spain: lower/middle class Germany middle/upper class All countries All countries

Cultural Influence from Hip Hop movements Creates individual and collective identity: Sense of community Respect among pairs Adrenaline Artistic contribution Broken windows theory

All countries All countries All countries

Regional More present in urban regions:Available space Visibility of the graffiti work No spatial logic More graffiti in less controlled spaces Easy access to international writers’ networks No explicit use of graffiti maps

All countries All countries All countries All countries All countries




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(No Author) “El resultado sera muy similar a la obra original” [Results will be almost the same than

the original piece], Faro de Vigo, August 22 2014. http://www.farodevigo.es/gran‐

vigo/2014/08/22/reto‐resultado‐sera‐similar‐obra/1079660.html [22.08.2014].

(No Author) “Graffiti legalised in Granada”, Euroweekly news, August 9 2014

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/spanish‐news/item/121958‐graffiti‐legalised‐in‐granada

[09.08. 2014].

(No Author) “Trowbridge graffiti vandals are caught red handed”, Wiltshire Times, 2014,

http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/11412250.Trowbridge_graffiti_vandals_are_caught_red_han

ded/ [16.08.2014].

(No Author) “Hidden cameras to clamp down on graffiti in Dún Laoghaire”,The Irish Times, 2014

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish‐news/hidden‐cameras‐to‐clamp‐down‐on‐graffiti‐in‐

d%C3%BAn‐laoghaire‐1.1896288 [14.08.2014].




(No Author) “Graffiti artist dies after being electrocuted by third rail in NYC subway station”, Daily

Mail,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article‐2682373/Graffiti‐artist‐electrocuted‐apparently‐touching‐

rail‐NYC‐subway‐station.html [06.07.2014].

(No Author) “Graffiti Artists Turn on Banksy: The Rise of Art Hate”, The Daily Beast,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/06/graffiti‐artists‐turn‐on‐banksy‐the‐rise‐of‐art‐

hate.html [08.06.2014].

(No Author) Attorney’s General of Alicante demands judges all graffiti to be considered felony when

the cleaning overpasses 400€, Informacion.es,

http://www.diarioinformacion.com/sucesos/2012/09/23/fiscalia‐pide‐danos‐grafitis‐sean‐delito‐

superen‐400‐euros/1296974.html [14.08.2014].

(No Author) “Decenas de menores compensan sus delitos con trabajos sociales cada año”,

Elcorreoweb.es http://elcorreoweb.es/2013/06/02/decenas‐de‐menores‐compensan‐sus‐delitos‐

con‐trabajos‐sociales‐cada‐ano/ [02.06.2014].

(No Author) “Luftüberwachung: Deutsche Bahn setzt Drohnen gegen Graffiti‐Sprüher ein”, Spiegel

Online 26 May 2013, http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/deutsche‐bahn‐will‐graffiti‐

sprueher‐mit‐drohnen‐filmen‐a‐901973.html [03.06.2014].




8 APPENDICES

8.1 Appendix 1

COMMON INTERVIEW GUIDELINE (sprayers and stakeholders)

Introduction: project presentation (brief / minimal) – interviewee

1. Understanding/Definition

Define the issue: 'graffiti'

What does it mean to you?

Are there different kinds (categorisation)?

Is graffiti different in different places (local level / global level)? What explains these

differences?

2. Relationship to graffiti

Your relationship to graffiti, how has it evolved? How long you are involved? Are or there different

phases included? Were there changes?

3. Experiences/Motives

Key moments in graffiti (in your experience/opinion/career)

What are key issues and key problems?

What are key challenges?

Typical course/process of work/activity, typical steps of work/activity;

What are the motives of those actors involved in the field of graffiti?

Does there exist a direct contact to the actors involved? How are your experiences?

4. Impact of graffiti

What is the impact of graffiti for you personally? What is the impact for the general public?

How is the perception of graffiti in the general public?

5. Legal framework

How do you evaluate the existing legal framework?

Sprayers: Did the legal framework already affect you? If yes, how? How was your

personal experience within the criminalisation process? Did you draw for yourself

consequences after the incident? If yes, in which way?

Stakeholders: Is it sufficient? Do you see any legal gaps that should be covered? 2




6. Prevention strategies / measures

What is your understanding of prevention regarding graffiti?

What do you understand the phrase “Broken Windows” to mean?

Strategies and alternatives: how is graffiti addressed and how should it be addressed? What

are your experiences with those actions, (prevention) strategies?

Do you use any systems/tools in order to monitor/report/manage/communicate graffiti/your

own practice? Which components are included? How useful do you consider this

system/tool?

How would you propose to measure instances of graffiti practice which may have positive

impact on communities?

Describe the group of actors you deal with (age, gender, socio‐cultural background);

Awareness of preventions strategies in other European cities? If so how did they learn about

it? Who are the other actors?

7. Exchange / networking

Which groups or networks or persons are relevant for you regarding graffiti?

Are you part of any of these groups or networks?

What are potentials and limitations regarding the network / networking?

What are the current communication channels (including Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and

potential new channels?

Which media (e.g. (online‐magazines) and events/places are of importance concerning

graffiti?

Map of stakeholders and relationship between them (draw if necessary).

8. Outlook: future approaches / needs

How do you see the future of graffiti? Do you have any specific concepts/ideas concerning

this future?

How do you see the future of graffiti as a regeneration strategy? Do you have any specific

concepts/ideas concerning this future? How do you see the future of graffiti prevention?

Scenario: What could be an acceptable way forward or solution for you / your organisation?

What and who could contribute?

9. GRAFFOLUTION PLATFORM

[Explain platform]: How do you assess the benefits of a web‐based tool? Which

needs/recommendations already exist for it? Are there experiences available? Who could/should be

reached with it? Who should be part of the platform? What should such a platform take into

account? Is there interest to participate/contribute to such a tool? Are you aware of any other tool

or platform, both online and offline?




8.2 Appendix 2

COMMON CODING LIST

Block or themes CODE

Understanding

Graffiti definition

Graffiti meaning

Graffiti categorisation

Graffiti local/global levels

Interviewee relationship to graffiti

Relationship: Current

Relationship: Evolution

Relationship: how long involved

Graffiti: Phases

Graffiti: Changes

Graffiti: Generations

Experiences/motives

Experience: Key moments

Experience: key issues

Experience: key problems

Experience: key challenges

Typical course of work/activity

Typical steps of work/activity

Actors involved: motivations

Actors involved: contact among them

Impact of graffiti

Impact: personally

Impact: general public

Perception: personally

Perception: general public

Legal framework

Existing legal FW: evaluation

Existing legal FW: sufficient

Existing legal FW: gaps to cover

Existing Legal FW: criminalisation process

Existing legal FW: affected by it

Existing legal FW: consequences

Prevention

Prevention: understanding

Prevention: "broken windows" meaning

Prevention: current strategies & alternatives

Prevention: desirable strategies & alternatives

Prevention: your experiences

Prevention: targeted group

Prevention: results

Prevention: existing collaborations




Prevention: systems & tools for monitorization

Prevention: systems & tools for reporting

Prevention: systems & tools for managing

Prevention: tools included

Prevention: how useful tools are Prevention: measures & positive impact on communities Prevention: actors you deal with (age, gender, SCB)

Prevention: awareness in other European cities

Prevention: how did they learn about it

Prevention: who are the other actors

Exchange/networking

Networking: relevant groups/persons

Networking: are you part of relevant groups

Networking: potentials

Networking: limitations

Networking: current communication channels

Networking: potential communication channels

Networking: media of importance

Networking: events/places are of importance

Networking: actors in the map

Networking: relationships among actors

Future approaches/needs

Future: view on graffiti

Future: graffiti as a regeneration strategy

Future: future of graffiti prevention

Future scenario: acceptable way or solution

Future scenario: who would contribute

Graffolution Platform

Web: benefits a web‐based tool

Web: existing needs

Web: recommendations

Web: available experiences

Web: who should be reached

Web: who should be part of it

Web: things to take into account

Web: interest to participate/contribute

Web: other on‐line tools known

Web: other off‐line tools known

Regional, cultural, ethical, privacy and legal aspects and influence factors report.

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Transcript of Regional, cultural, ethical, privacy and legal aspects and influence factors report.