Gold Coast authorities are turning to the same digital technologies popular with graffiti offenders to help reduce a yearly graffiti removal bill in the millions.
City of Gold Coast Senior Community Safety Officer Anna Rainbow said council launched a mobile phone graffiti-reporting app last month to reduce their $1 million removal costs.
“In the first three weeks of launching the app it was downloaded 3143 times and has been used to report 1425 graffiti incidents,” Ms Rainbow said.
“We also run a range of preventative programs including adult and youth offender removal programs, graffiti prevention murals and education modules for schools.
“Council adheres to a rapid graffiti removal policy and strives to action all reports as quickly as possible,” she said.
Graffiti around the Gold Coast on private and public structures
Transport and Main Roads Principal Project Officer Peter Harrison said state government agencies are working together to remove graffiti from roadside infrastructure.
“The department has an arrangement with Corrective Services where offenders remove graffiti while working off their community service sentences,” Mr Harrison said.
“We’re also sending hot spot locations to Queensland Police using GPS and photos on our mobile phones and providing camera towers for monitoring operations.
“Our policy is to remove offensive graffiti within 24hrs of being reported, seven days for highly visible and about one month for others.
“There was a four month period of zero tolerance where we removed graffiti as soon as it was reported and it cost about $700,000,” he said.
The entire section of the Pacific Motorway is routinely vandalised
Community-based organisation Phantast Cultural Music & Arts Association Inc. has had some success in preventing graffiti by painting murals on roadside highway noise barriers and retaining walls.
Phantast President and Master Artist June Hintz said the peak age of a graffitist is either 13 or 17 years – ages highly familiar with digital technologies such as smart phones and social media.
“The technology for smart phones has seen benefit with graffitists, and the crime is being aided by social networking sites where graffiti artists can network relatively undetected,” Ms Hintz said.
“Young graffitists use Google Earth to find safe places which have limited CCTV coverage such as road corridors that are easier to attack than traditional rail yards.
“They are using software programs to remove automatic GPS traces included on most smart phone photos as well as do-not-track apps that stop Facebook and chat sites leaving ‘scars’.
“The option of using internet on the go and unlimited mobile broadband deals make it affordable and convenient for users to access the internet on their smart phones, upload and post photos worldwide,” she said.
Phantast targets graffiti individuals and crews, and engages offenders to make reparation for their offences as part of their rehabilitation.
The organisation has developed a program to map tags and their frequency on GIS to measure and study program impacts, gang trends and evidence of success.
A sample of Phantast’s murals (see further works)
In the battle against graffiti and vandalism the offenders themselves are helping authorities identify them as they post videos to social media sites in their efforts for peer recognition.
Queensland Police charged seven people in relation to graffiti damage carried out on Queensland Rail structures during the January 2011 floods as a result of videos posted to YouTube.
Youth on the Go 