Tagged by the Justice System

Perhaps you’ve seen Timothy Badalucco’s work: colorful, ballooning scrawls spray-painted across freeway signs and buildings from Los Angeles to Seattle. The 20-year-old graffiti tagger spent the past eight years spreading his dubious artistic message, which carries the monikers GKAE and GANKE. The courts have now sent Badalucco a message: Cough up $100,000 to clean up the mess.

That’s a hefty chunk of change, especially considering Badalucco’s Calabasas parents are already on the hook for a $43,000 fine stemming from his 1993 conviction on vandalism charges. But the fines are hardly excessive considering the crime, and authorities should make sure he pays every dime. In 1995 alone, Californians spent more than $7.5 million just to remove graffiti along freeways. That doesn’t include the efforts of cities, counties and private groups.

Far from being the art its proponents claim it to be, tagging is a crime that goes beyond the simple defacing of someone else’s property. It tears the threads that hold communities together and undermines the public sense of ownership that allows shared spaces like parks and business districts to thrive. Residents across Southern California routinely report stamping out graffiti as the top priority in their neighborhoods because they rightly fear that tolerating it only portends worse to come.

Such concern apparently failed to strike a chord with Badalucco, who bragged about his exploits even after his first arrest and fine. Maybe now he--and the others who might scrawl their tags across a freeway sign--will take the matter more seriously.