Taggers too young to be charged
Tween graffiti vandals let go with police warning
April 23, 2009
Carmela Fragomeni
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/553802
As frustration reaches new heights over graffiti in Hamilton parks and on homes and buildings, police dealt this week with the youngest culprits to date — two 11-year-olds and a 12-year-old.
On Wednesday, Larry Moffat and his wife Kasan Sketchley were on their way home from work about 5:30 p.m. and saw three boys spray-painting the back of Main Street Billiards, a business in the Main and Kensington area.
They stopped the car and gave chase, caught two of them and held them for police. The third outran them, but they learned where he lived in their neighbourhood and decided to inform the boy’s parents about what their son had been doing, thinking they’d have a word with the boy.
“The father dismissed it like it was a joke and said send the coppers down,” recounted Sketchley. “It was very shocking.”
Now, Sketchley is determined to do something about the problem in the alley behind their house where her fence and all of her neighbours’ properties have been hit — “even if it means I’m going to sit in the ally all night.”
There is no way she is going to let it continue without doing something and she’s already talking to neighbours about forming a group.
“We can’t take this lying down.”
She also said parents have to be held accountable for their kids.
Hamilton police said the three boys were too young to be charged. They were turned over to their parents with a police caution, said Terri-Lynn Collings.
“When we’re dealing with young people, we don’t always get support from their parents,” she said. “Chances are we’ll see this kid again.”
The number of graffiti incidents reported to police shot up to 512 in 2008 from 123 in 2006. There was a 36 per cent increase from 2007 to 2008.
Arrests have increased from 18 in 2006, to 53 in 2007 and 57 last year.
So far this year, there have been 149 incidents reported and 14 arrests, said Hamilton police crime manager Sgt. Tina Potter.
But Potter said the increases in reports and arrests are not necessarily an indication the graffiti problem is getting worse. It’s more a combination of the fact there is more public awareness about reporting incidents and of police clamping down on offenders with a zero tolerance policy.
Although the boys caught by Moffat and Sketchley were too young to be arrested and charged, they are the youngest the police have dealt with to date, she said. The oldest is 22.
The penalty is usually probation and/or community service work, she said.
Kids do it “for the heck of it” and for notoriety with friends as well as a sense of belonging, she said.
Potter and Clean City Liaison Committee chair Dan Rodrigues, whose city hall advisory group is working to resolve the graffiti problem, say despite the perception, Hamilton’s graffiti is no worse than in other cities.
The good news is, police and the city are taking steps to curb the problem.
“We’ve started to get a handle on it,” said Potter.
Both Potter and Rodrigues say that as difficult as it is for residents to have to keep cleaning off the graffiti, one of the top ways of stopping it is to remove the tags quickly.
City staff, meanwhile, are launching an awareness campaign May 19 and are expected to report back to councillors in June on potential measures to stop or reduce graffiti, including banning the sale of paint-spray cans to minors.
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