This post is not about folksonomy or tagging, web 2.0 style.
The school at which I teach is vandalised from time to time. The weekend just past eclipsed most of the previous acts of vandalism. An individual or two decided it would be a good idea to tag the school. They tagged brickwork, bulletin boards, social justice displays, murals, posters, water tanks, windows and more. It was everywhere.
The photograph above illustrates one of the tags. I will not show more. I do not want to give the individuals responsible for this crime the pleasure of seeing more of their criminal acts published.
This incenses me. Tagging has become a serious problem in our main regional centre. Parts of the city are ugly as a result. Ugly. Gratefully it is not yet a serious issue in my own town.
I was considerably restrained in referring to the persons responsible as individuals. A selection of other terms crossed my mind as I walked around the school this morning.
Graffiti could possibly be art at times when the work is performed responsibly and legally. Otherwise graffiti and tagging on public and private property is a crime.
Perhaps the culprits will be caught and given a little restorative justice ~ community work cleaning up tagging and graffiti around the town.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Hi John
Same problem at our school, really bad lately. I even have three taggers in my classes (and I know they are thanks to a network of kids dobbing them and our own reconaissance work), they are awaiting (unbeknown to them) a knock on the door by the police who have now built a case against these taggers at school and in the wider community.
Restorative justice? By all means, but it looks like after an awakening spot of ‘ordinary’, punitive justice.
The tag wars continue – the key to beating taggers are the kids themselves though, not us.