Teens Suggest Ways to Help Curb Graffiti

The teen-ager’s voice was scratchy and distant over the public address system, but his frustration was clear as he described to county officials the lack of opportunity that drives his peers to pick up spray paint cans and guns.

“There’s just no jobs for us,” said Juan of Huntington Beach.

The youth was one of the first callers Wednesday to Youth Rap, a one-day hot line to survey students about their solutions for curbing the county’s graffiti problem.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez and county schools Supt. John F. Dean fielded calls and jotted down the ideas that students countywide had devised during two weeks of class exercises. The officials also talked with 25 students gathered in a Department of Education boardroom.

The suggestions varied little. The students talked of tougher penalties, dedicating certain community walls for taggers to paint legally and enforcing curfews. The most common request was for more activities or jobs to keep kids off the streets.

“I think they do this because they don’t have other things to do,” Juan said, adding that he has been looking for a job with no luck. “I think Orange County is beautiful, the beaches and the weather and the malls. But it’s going to end up just like L.A. with all the homeless and gangs.”

Other callers suggested after-school art programs to provide taggers with legal canvases for their handiwork, or clubs that focus on music.

“For these people, it’s a way to express themselves,” a girl from Irvine told the officials. “If they have (a club), it might give them a different way to do that.”

Dean said he was somewhat surprised to hear the students cite a lack of activities.

“This business over and over about needing something to do, that made an impression on me,” Dean said afterward. “Not all kids are sports-minded. It’d be great if we could extend the activities somehow, with this music group for example. But the budget--well, it just kills us. Everything relies on money.”

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Dean said he also was glad to hear the students, both the callers and some members of the audience, support the idea of enforcing curfews. “I think if we could nail some of these (taggers) on curfew, it might go a long way toward changing the minds of the others.”

Not everyone agreed.

Elizabeth, 13, of Sycamore Junior High School in Anaheim, stood up and told Dean and Vasquez that a curfew would not deter youngsters who are already fixed on rebelling. “It’s not going to work because they’re just going to run away from home.”

Another Sycamore student in the crowd, Maria, 14, said many of the suggestions miss the point. To stop tagging, she said, parents must be able to control their children.

“Parents should get to know their kids, because you guys don’t even know what your kids are doing,” she said.

Vasquez said he was happy to hear the students put forward the idea of tougher penalties, a linchpin concept of his Graffiti Task Force formed last summer. The task force has advocated a change in the state law, lowering the felony vandalism level from $5,000 worth of damage to $400.

“It’s nice to hear that,” a chuckling Vasquez told a young caller who suggested the level go lower still, to $250. “We’d be doing big business then.”

Vasquez said the similarity of the student suggestions to the task force’s agenda is encouraging. “It means we’re on the right track, so it’s very good to hear.”

Suggestions to the Youth Rap hot line, both the two dozen calls handled by the two county officials and another 40 handled by a bank of operators, will be compiled and returned to the county’s school districts within 40 days. For information of the program or to find out about upcoming Youth Rap sessions, call (714) 966-4172.