No Need to Wait to Paint Over Graffiti

* While overall I appreciated Jerry Hicks’ July 10 column on dealing with the blight of graffiti in Orange County, there was a glaring inconsistency.

In the first part of the article, Hicks quoted experts who said that the “broken window” effect should be avoided, i.e. that blight breeds blight, broken windows breed more broken windows, and likewise graffiti encourages more graffiti. Hence, it needs to be removed quickly. I wholeheartedly agree.

But later in the article, a national anti-crime group is quoted as recommending that one should not remove graffiti on one’s own. “The police need to document what’s there for future prosecution,” i.e., live with graffiti on your property until the police have the time to come out and document it.

Please, no! Take your own picture of it, if you want it documented. The crime group’s advice sounds like a small-town mentality, where police have little to do but run out to the scene of a graffiti-scarred wall.

But this isn’t Mayberry. As the Placentia police officer noted in the article, vandals want to see their work and have others see it. No satisfaction, no reason to do it anymore. Don’t give them an incentive by leaving graffiti up. Remove it quickly.

In eight years of painting over graffiti in my Anaheim neighborhood, I have found that the quicker graffiti disappears, the less frequently it appears. And keep matching paint on hand. There will be no mismatch and no evidence the graffiti ever existed.

ROD SPEER

Anaheim