Murals are an example of an art form that can spruce up a community and help give it a positive identity. Graffiti devalues a community by degrading its appearance and sucking up money from taxpayers to pay for cleanup efforts.
We’re not talking nickels and dimes. Metro Police Detective Scott Black told Las Vegas Sun reporter Sam Skolnik for a story in Monday’s newspaper that graffiti costs Southern Nevadans $30 million a year. That’s enough money to build two elementary schools.
Thanks to Las Vegas City Councilman Ricki Barlow, the council is considering an ordinance that would add penalties to the existing law for the crime known as tagging. As Skolnik reported, Barlow’s measure would require first-time offenders to pay at least $400 in fines and perform 100 hours of community service. A second-time offender would be slapped with a $750 fine and 200 hours of community service, and a third-time lawbreaker would pay $1,000 in addition to the 200 hours of service.
The ordinance would preserve the possibility of up to six months in jail per offense under existing law. But the community service provisions would be new, as would Barlow’s proposal to suspend the tagger’s driver’s license for six months to two years.
These are all sound ideas because tagging, if left unpunished, has the potential to become a serial crime. The punishment should discourage repeat offenses. We believe Barlow’s proposal, if enforced, could reduce graffiti.
The only Barlow provision we disagree with would give courts the power in all cases to require parents who cannot afford to pay the fines levied on underage taggers to perform community service instead of their children. We think the parents, instead of the children, should be made to perform community service, in lieu of any fine, if the child has committed a third offense, which indicates a chronic breakdown in parental responsibility. The experience might make the parents do a better job of parenting.
Overall, though, stronger anti-graffiti measures are warranted and Barlow’s measure is a good place to start.
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