What is Graffiti?
There are two types of graffiti: gang graffiti and tagging graffiti. Each is distinctive from the other:
| Graffiti type | Description |
|---|---|
| Gang Graffiti | Gang Graffiti is used to designate gang affiliation and gang members and often tells what is going on with a gang. |
| Tagging Graffiti | Tagging Graffiti is used for gaining “fame” with others who are into tagging. The tagging usually shows the “tag name” or moniker and sometimes the name of the tagging crew they belong to. |
Graffiti has been called the “newspaper of the streets.” Street gang members put up graffiti to increase their visibility. Gang graffiti is usually much more primitive and sometimes more easily read than graffiti done by taggers. Gang graffiti may show alliances between gangs, mark the scene of a crime, or commemorate the death of a beloved person. Cross-outs of individual letters or of rival gang names are common. This means that individual letters are crossed out when that letter is in a rival gang’s name.
Prevention
1. Get Savvy. Learn about graffiti and how it impacts your community. By controlling access, incorporating landscaping and/or fencing, limiting access to roofs by thoughtful placement of dumpsters and add or improve lighting around the building/residence to promote natural surveillance, are just a few simple and cost effective ways to combat graffiti vandalism.
2. Report graffiti to the appropriate authorities. Please submit a report online though ServiceWorks or call the graffiti hotline at (303) 774-4327.
3. Organize a paint-out to address "hot spots" of graffiti tagging. Gather supplies and community volunteers to remove graffiti in your neighborhood. Rapid and continual removal of graffiti is the best way for owners to protect their community from graffiti vandals.
4. Make art. Plan a paint-brush mural to cover a wall that is continuously plagued with graffiti.
5. Reach out. Coordinate a graffiti awareness campaign at your school or in the community and engaging at-risk-youth.
6. Take ownership. Adopt-a-spot in your school or community.
7. Proactively plant. Pro-actively plant trees or other greenery near an already graffiti-plagued wall or future potential areas where graffiti may become an issue.
8. Choose coatings. Apply an anti-graffiti coating on walls whenever possible for easy removal of graffiti.
9. Have discussions. Dedicate a neighborhood association meeting to graffiti prevention and invite local city staff and law enforcement.
10. Know the local laws and Ordinances as it relates to graffiti in Longmont. View Longmont Municipal Code 16.20.180 - Section 302.9 Defacement of Property
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