By arthur Weinreb
Monday, November 6, 2006
During Toronto's municipal election campaign, graffiti became an election issue albeit a very minor one. One suggestion that has been made is to prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from buying spray paint in order to stem the proliferation of graffiti. This solution presupposes that all those property-destroying punks (or artists as some would prefer) are under 18 years of age. This proposal is also premised on the fact that kids, who are legally prevented from obtaining alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and crystal meth but somehow wind up smoking, drinking and otherwise ingesting these substances will never be able to get their little young offender hands on spray paint.
anti-graffiti laws are difficult to enforce for no other reason that major cities are subject to big city crime and, contrary to what the left always says about crime being down, most cities don't have the police resources to waste on tracking down those that deface public and private property in the name of artistic expression. One solution that is being pushed is the idea of giving these budding artists their own area or areas where they will be free to legally desecrate a wall or two.
This is just the last in a line of activities where the powers that be fight an illegal activity by allowing or partially legalizing it. Canada's correctional system is a leader in this area of thought. They can't prevent sexual activity in prisons so they hand out condoms. Neither can correctional authorities prevent prisoners from tattooing their fellow inmates; so they decide to open up supervised tattoo parlours. and then there is idea of “safe injection sites” where drug addicts (or more specifically some drug addicts) are allowed to legally consume substances that others can end up doing time for.
at least the above can all be rationalized on the basis of harm reduction; saving lives and more importantly, saving our socialized health care system from overspending on HIV/aIDS and other medical consequences of sharing dirty needles. But this saving grace is lacking in the proposal to set up what in effect will be designated areas for those who enjoy spray painting someone else's property.
The proposal to allow people who like to deface the property of others a place to let their spray paint roam free is bound to fail. It is reminiscent of the argument for legalizing prostitution; if it is legalized all prostitutes will work from apartments and/or in designated areas of the city and then the streets will be cleaned up. This is all premised on the absurd notion that the teenage crack-addicted hookers that can be found on some downtown street corners will suddenly move into apartments and become thriving entrepreneurs, running and managing their own businesses. Those in society who can't resist spray painting other people's property will use these designated sites only if it is convenient; otherwise their current conduct will continue. This proposal will solve nothing other than to make those that argue for this idea feel better about themselves.
The notion of providing legalized areas to spay paint on walls is nothing more than another indication of the moral relativism that is sweeping 21st century society. Spray painting someone's property is wrong but it's not that wrong. These poor little dears need an outlet for their creative abilities.
The fact that police cannot make the apprehension of those who damage the property of others a priority does not mean that graffiti artists should be encouraged. Tougher penalties for those who are caught would be a better societal response to the graffiti problem than signaling, however tacitly, its approval.
Defacing a wall should be like demolishing a building. It should only be done at the request of the owner; it should not be allowed to encourage punks to show off their artistic expression.
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