Why This Organization Exists

In short, this organization exists because spray-paint vandalism is visual garbage, it’s ruining our communities, and it’s not being cleaned or punished properly. And we want to change that.

Maryland Citizens Against Vandalism (MCAV) comprises taxpayers and voters who want to reverse this growing trend of vandalism that is plaguing our communities at every level. For a variety of reasons, the rise in spray-paint vandalism has been steadily increasing throughout the United States, and the State of Maryland has not been spared. The amount of spray-paint vandalism along major and minor roadways in Maryland has increased dramatically. Our neighborhoods, our cities, our counties, and our state as a whole are becoming blighted with so-called “tags,” “throw-ups,” and just general “bombing” to use a few terms from the vandals themselves. Spray-paint vandalism is having immediate negative effects on our communities and on our state as a whole—people perceive an area plagued with vandalism as an area mired in lawlessness and in decline. This perception easily turns into reality as individuals and businesses often do not want to invest their personal or professional lives in an area that they perceive as decaying—perception becomes reality. To reverse this, MCAV wants spray-paint vandalism cleaned properly, strong legislation that deters it, police who are encouraged to investigate it, prosecutors who are empowered to prosecute it, and judges who are encouraged to punish it. We especially want government at all levels in Maryland to clean spray-paint vandalism not by simply painting over it, which just creates an additional form of blight. We want government to clean the vandalism with the sophisticated yet relatively inexpensive methods that already exist—methods that eliminate any traces of the vandalism having been there. We want spray-paint vandalism to be dramatically reduced or, better yet, eliminated.

But isn’t “graffiti” art?

Efforts are continually made by particular segments of society and culture to frame the issue of spray-paint vandalism as valid artistic expression, and it’s even sometimes conflated with the concept of public art. That notion is pretentious nonsense intentionally designed to muddy the true nature of spray-paint vandalism: aggression, dominance, and destruction. Spray-paint vandalism is certainly not public art. In a broad common sense, public art is some kind of creative expression on one’s own property or some kind of creative expression that has been legally commissioned for someone else’s property—public or private. As an organization, we believe in and encourage public art. However, we do not believe in vandalism—the altering of private and public property without the owner’s permission. The moral context is what primarily differentiates spray-paint vandalism from public art: vandalism is done to someone’s property without permission, and public art is done to someone’s property with permission.

The creative context also differentiates public art from vandalism. Public art is often done to beautify a space, to challenge a viewer’s perception, or even, in some cases, to deliver a subversive perspective, but whatever the case, public art almost always possesses some sort of significant meaning. Spray-paint vandalism, on the other hand, is usually insignificant in meaning. Even when done with some kind of sophisticated illustrative technique, the overwhelming majority of spray-paint vandalism is an expression of selfish anti-social aggression and dominance and is used as a weapon in intentional social destruction. Just because a person expresses something, that expression isn’t automatically art—expressions of hatred, for example, are commonly not thought of as art. And just because someone uses a tool normally used by actual artists (that is, a spray-paint can) does not automatically make that person an artist or what they do with that tool art. There are, of course, rare examples of spray-paint vandalism that do have expressive significance (such as Banksy), but those instances are so rare that it is not worth normalizing the onslaught of visual garbage and visual chaos that is enveloping our communities. To allow all spray-paint vandalism to be tolerated to account for the .01% of vandalism that has some kind of expressive significance is disproportionately absurd.

But as you can see, the creative context of this issue can quickly become murky and can be grossly manipulated by those who want a set of excuses to vandalize. Those who discuss the creative context of spray-paint vandalism often intentionally eliminate the moral context from the discussion. Therefore, as an organization, we ultimately believe that the central issue of spray-paint vandalism when addressing it in the court of public opinion is not about whether or not it is art but about whether it’s moral. It’s about whether someone has the right to alter—indeed, deface—someone else’s property. The central issue of spray-paint vandalism is a simple, moral one: if you don’t own the property, you can’t alter it.