There are two competing views of graffiti. There is the prevalent belief that it should be against the law to deface public or private property. Seattle has been enforcing its graffiti law, arresting perpetrators, ever since the 9th Circuit Court ruled last February that it is okay once again to enforce Seattle’s law. (Prior to the city’s appeal, a federal judge had ruled parts of that law unconstitutional.)
But while most residents are cheering renewed graffiti enforcement, there is a contrary view that it is wrong to penalize free expression and to allow government to define what is and what is not art. This view is voiced by those who believe the city’s law stifles artistic expression and social commentary, especially for marginalized communities.
The contrary viewpoint was expressed by Publicola’s Erica C. Barnett who recently wrote that “Seattle has an obsession with graffiti and the need for ‘order’ that warps city spending and serves as a cover for cracking down on people whose ideologies (in the case of encampment ‘sweeps’) conflict with government priority.”
Barnett voiced her divergent viewpoint after King County Prosecutor Lessa Manion announced charges against 16 individuals in more than 30 graffiti incidents. Those alleged perpetrators were identified in December following a year’s investigation by a special task force. The investigative team enlisted personnel from the King County prosecutor’s and city attorney’s offices, the Seattle Police Department, the mayor’s office, and the Washington State Patrol.
In January, Judge Ronald Kessler pushed through a lengthy docket charging the 16 individuals with second degree malicious mischief, a low-level felony, and two of the group with the additional charge of burglary for cutting fences and locks. Fourteen of the 16 are said to be associated with two prolific graffiti gangs: MSP (for “making suckas pay”) and BTM (“big time mob”).
When announcing the charges, Prosecutor Manion made a strong case against graffiti. She cited the high costs of graffiti cleanup to taxpayers (around $1 million a year) as well as to businesses that have been targeted time and again. Manion said of graffiti: “It is dangerous and costly and makes people feel unsafe in their neighborhoods.”
The prosecutor underscored that graffiti is not victimless, that it disrupts essential services, such as when graffiti-smeared buses and sound transit cars must be removed from service for repairs. Estimates are that the 16 individuals charged have inflicted $100,000 in damages. She said, “Dangling from a freeway to tag traffic signs is not art. Tagging buses and sound traffic cars is not art.”
Manion made clear the county’s primary goal is not to impose jail time, although sentences can carry to up five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Rather the county’s aim is to require graffitists to pay for cleanup and restitution at all properties they have harmed.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, who appeared alongside Manion, has been no less determined to combat graffiti. During his 2022 mayoral campaign, he unveiled his One Seattle Graffiti Plan, a beautification project to remove graffiti in downtown Seattle and the Chinatown International District ahead of the 2023 MLB all-star game.
To combat graffiti today, Harrell enlists 11 front-ine employees at Parks and nine graffiti rangers. The mayor also founded the Many Hands Initiative awarding $400,000 through the Office of Arts and Culture to seven organizations for Project Uplift, putting young artists to work creating murals across various Seattle neighborhoods.
The tug of war between the two views of graffiti — those who would excuse it as free expression and those convinced graffiti should exact a heavy penalty — was well expressed by an anonymous artist, who proposed a common-ground solution. That artist confessed to sympathy for taggers who need to be seen, but at the same time this person is convinced that we must respect each other’s space. When someone’s “free expression” exacts harms and economic hardship on others, the graffitist should not be protected.
Thank you, Jean, for speaking to those of us with common sense. I am absolutely fed up with the permissive wing of Seattleites, who have little problem with encampments, drugged-out zombies, and other riff-raff. Bring back more civility laws and a lot more vigorous enforcement. It’s not enough to make the graffiti scum clean up *some* graffiti; they need to spend a few thousand hours doing so. Hard labor instead of hard time.
And we need to not just clean up Seattle to impress visitors for big events, but for those of us who pay thousands of dollars in taxes each year to the City.
Yup.
Graffiti and “ tagging” are an attack on society.
Put them in jail and/or make them pay.
And btw, Erica C Barnett, it’s ok to crack down on people who violate the law.
You don’t like that? You want to make it difficult for liberal government to protect society? You get a Trump.
The predictable rage, and the predictable bloviation, of the predictable pompous asses among us only fuels the motivation of taggers and graffiti “artists” to spray more, tag more, and do more to piss off the outraged bougies even more. Some of you need to read history and learn. They’re tagging the freeway walls to provoke YOU, personally. Listen to you. “Protect society,” is it? Trump’s ICE is busting US citizens who have brown skin, and you’re calling on law enforcement to “protect society” from taggers? TAGGERS? I am so not impressed with you lot and your bogus outrage.
There’s some tone policing if I ever saw. Taking issue with perceived “rage” in an online forum (what, too many explanation marks? To many capital letters? This is so Seattle…) But you ignore the substance of David’s point. Laws are passed on behalf of voters. If you don’t like them, repeal them or vote out the policymakers responsible for them. Dismissing them as bogus outrage to another Seattle resident is completely missing the point.
I am pretty sure that the $1 million per year cost to taxpayers’ figure was surpassed long ago.
WSDOT needs to get its house in order. and clean up the graffiti along I-5 by Seattle and keep it cleaned off. That would help Seattle’s graffiti situation rather than making it look like it’s okay to tag walls along the freeway. THAT’s permissive.
The best solution is to remove the graffiti right away. Just do it.
I’m so glad you took on this topic. The previous articles I’ve seen on graffiti here in Seattle have been distressingly full of ambiguities, as if to say, “Scientists say evolution has happened, but creationists have some good points, too, you know.”
There are competing views of most issues, but that doesn’t mean both are equally valid. The job of advocacy journalists like Erica C. Barnett is, in part, to promote views that stake out particular positions. The job of public officials is to acknowledge and consider those views and then make decisions that address the needs of the community. And the needs of our community are clear. Almost anyone returning to Seattle from a trip to almost any other city in the United States or abroad will arrive at an obvious conclusion. Our once stately city looks like s***. It’s an embarrassment. I’ve seen some decent graffiti art around the city, but the vast majority of the things spraypainted on Seattle surfaces are the opposite of art. How does a name scrawled on an overpass quality as either art or free speech? And I have great sympathy for the businesses in our neighborhood that repeatedly have to paint over ugly tags.
Laws against graffiti exist for a reason. They should be upheld, and I applaud the mayor and other public officials for doing so.
Defacing public or private property without the permission of the owner is a crime. I don’t understand what the debate is about.
We are all paying for this offense, through our taxes and via the assault on our senses.
Erica Barnett and her ilk, Hannah Kreig, et.al. will rant endlessly that taggers are misunderstood artists, because the market they pander to is the disaffected, sad, warriors of the: pick one – (uber-left progressives)(libertarians) (anarchists). Her opinion reflects the irrational reasoning behind our current problems, but is not a justification.