Although some may think of tagging and graffiti as an art form, if you are a campus administrator or law enforcement official, you most likely consider it to be vandalism that is a significant drain on your institution’s precious resources. More importantly, if left unabated, it can lead to serious violence both on campus and in the community at large.

The amount of money our nation spends on graffiti abatement is a good indicator of the size of the problem. Some estimate the annual price tag of graffiti to be as much as $18 billion per year, and the costs continue to increase.

It is important then to understand how to interpret graffiti and the people who do it so you can intervene in an appropriate fashion.

Graffiti Has Been Around for Centuries
There is a common misconception that all graffiti is gang related. Actually, scrawling on walls and other public areas has been occurring worldwide since ancient times in Greece, Rome, Mexico, Scandinavia, Ireland and other areas. The current form of graffiti that concerns campuses, however, is commonly called tagging or tag-banging.

The most common type of graffiti comes from individual taggers (also called “one-ers”) who seek recognition by putting their monikers on walls and other areas around a campus.

“Some taggers have no gang affiliation at all,” says Sgt. Vince Masterson of the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD). “With some, their only purpose is to gain fame through their tagging, so they practice their writing styles and frequently change their names to whatever they think is cool. They will also change names once they’ve been identified by law enforcement or someone who can give them consequences for their actions. The tagger might have four or five different names during his young career.”

Although pure taggers who are not affiliated with any gang generally don’t start wars between rival crews, they still pose problems for a campus in terms of the damage they inflict on property. They might also have issues with other taggers who have better writing skills or cross out their work. These issues can lead to confrontations.

Pure Taggers Often ‘Graduate’ to Tag Banging
What concerns many campus safety experts, however, is that often taggers and tagging crews become affiliated with gangs and then engage in tag banging. “Sometimes the local gang will pressure the tagging crew and tell them ‘You can’t operate in our territory without becoming one of us,’” says Masterson.

According to Richard Valdemar, a gang expert who worked with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for 33 years, in Los Angeles, the Mexican mafia ordered all tagger crews be placed under the gang in which territory they were operating. “In the nineties, 18th Street took over a huge number of tagging crews, and they became subsets of the gang.” In other cases, some tagging crews become outlaw gangs on their own.

When taggers become affiliated with a gang, there is an increased potential for violence among rival crews. Unlike the pure tagger, whose main focus is fame, artistry and aesthetics, a tag-banger’s goal is to mark his gang’s territory and challenge rival gangs. Often, he gets his marching orders from more senior gang members.

One clear indication that a confrontation might soon happen between opposing gangs is when a tag-banger crosses out one gang sign and paints a rival moniker over it. “That’s the ultimate disrespect, and usually there are consequences,” says Masterson.

Sometimes a crew will “crack” a rival group’s sign. “They will paint that sign and show it cracked in half with their sign coming out of the middle, which is a sign of disrespect from one gang to the other,” says George Patak, operations manager for the Detroit office of Wackenhut Corp.“When you start seeing that kind of stuff, that means trouble is a brewin’.”

Campus Administrators Try to Read Signs, Intervene
Because gang graffiti is often the precursor to escalating violence, campus law enforcement and administrators attempt to decipher what is written and intervene before an incident occurs. “If we see another crew or individual is crossed out or wrote something derogatory about another crew or individual, if we know anyone who is a member of those crews or the tagger, we will bring them in and try to calm things down through conversation,” says Masterson. “That’s if we know who the players are. We often get parents involved because they need to know what their children are doing. Sometimes that’s enough.”

Knowing the identification of the tag bangers and what the symbols mean, however, is a challenge and requires a close working relationship involving campus law enforcement, administrators, faculty, students and parents.

Teachers may come across a tagger’s piece book, which contains photos of his most recent or best work. Students’ clothes (shoes, hat visors, shirts and backpacks) may have gang signs on them. Also, a tagger might carry his graffiti tools with him (spray tips from various spray paint cans, nozzles, pens and pencils are often hidden in secret compartments in athletic shoes) so he can tag when the opportunity presents itself.

Students Provide Most Accurate Intelligence
All of this information can be used to identify the taggers and tag-bangers on campus, as well as their monikers and gang affiliations. Developing relationships with the local probation department and juvenile facility can also provide good information on gang activity.

That said, the best intelligence usually comes from the students. “Your SRO and school administrators need to listen to the children,” says Valdemar. “Talk to them about what’s going on. Ask ‘What does TDK mean?’ and they’ll say ‘That’s a tagger crew, and that means Those Damn Kids.’”

He also recommends campus administrators find out about problems students are having with each other before they become a community issue. One way to do this is to watch how students divide into cliques at lunch time. “Most of them are going to be harmless, but some are going to be predatory gangs,” says Valdemar. “They’re bully groups, and that leads to gang membership — not only for the person being bullied, but also the bully.”

Social networking sites are another excellent source of information on gangs, which usually have Web sites. Unfortunately, when it comes to cyber space, children are generally much more advanced than school administrators or parents. That is why it is so important to keep the lines of communication open with students — they can teach adults about texting, the hidden (or not so hidden) locations of inappropriate sites and other emerging technologies and societal trends.

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Behaviors Associated With Joining a Gang

The early adolescent years (12–14 years of age) are a crucial time when youths are exposed to gangs and may consider joining a gang. Youths who are becoming involved in a gang may exhibit the following behaviors:

• Negative changes in behavior, such as:
  • Withdrawing from family
  • Declining school attendance, performance or behavior
  • Staying out late without reason
  • Unusual desire for secrecy
  • Confrontational behavior, such as talking back, verbal abuse, name calling and disrespect for parental authority
  • Sudden negative opinions about law enforcement or adults in positions of authority (school officials or teachers)
  • Change in attitude about school, church, or other normal activities or change in behavior at these activities
• Unusual interest in one or two particular colors of clothing or a particular logo
• Interest in gang-influenced music, videos and movies
• Use and practice of hand signals to communicate with friends
• Peculiar drawings or gang symbols on schoolbooks, clothing, notebooks or even walls
• Drastic changes in hair or dress style and/or having a group of friends who have the same hair or dress style
• Withdrawal from longtime friends and forming bonds with an entirely new group of friends
• Suspected drug use, such as alcohol, inhalants and narcotics
• The presence of firearms, ammunition or other weapons
• Non-accidental physical injuries, such as being beaten or injuries to hands and knuckles from fighting
• Unexplained cash or goods, such as clothing or jewelry

Source: OJJDP

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Deciphering the Signs

Although monikers can change daily for pure taggers, the symbols and colors affiliated with gangs like the Crips and Bloods have remained remarkably consistent through the years. Many experts recommend that schools and other campuses not allow this and other types of gang symbolism and attire to be displayed or worn while at school or work.

Bloods (People Nation)

• Red Colors (primary)
• Clothes shifted to the left
• Five-pointed stars
• Pitchfork pointed down

Crips (Folk Nation)

• Blue colors (primary)
• Clothes shifted to the right
• Three- or six-pointed crowns
• Six-pointed stars
• Pitchfork pointed up

Courtesy George Patak

Related Articles:

• Design Your Way to a Graffiti-Free Campus
• Stopping Gangs One Child at a Time
• Stop Street Corner Drug Dealing

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Robin Hattersley Gray is executive editor of Campus Safety. She can be reached at robin.gray@bobit.com.To subscribe to the unabridged print version of Campus Safety magazine, click here.

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