• It costs America more than $8 billion per year just to clean up graffiti.
• Immediate removal - within 24-48 hours - is the key to successful graffiti prevention.
• There are four types of graffiti – tagging, satanic/hate, gang, and generic (non-threatening messages like "Bobby loves Suzy" or "Class of 2000"). San Antonio mainly deals with gang and tagging graffiti. Tagging graffiti is more ornate while gang graffiti uses symbols.
• It is a common misperception that most graffiti is done by gangs when in fact gangs are responsible for less than 10% of graffiti.
• Graffiti vandals represent every social, ethnic and economic background. Suburban males commit approximately 50% of graffiti vandalism from pre-teen to early 20s.
• The average age of the arrested graffiti vandal is 17-18, with an overall broad range of 8-54.
• Community paintbrush murals are rarely defaced by graffiti and instill a sense of pride among those who live nearby.
• There are four primary motivating factors for graffiti vandalism: fame, rebellion, self-expression, and power.
• Getting the media to publish photos and videotape of graffiti is often the ultimate fame for graffiti vandals.
• Graffiti cleanup takes a big chunk out of municipal budgets. The city of San Jose spends about $3 million a year fighting graffiti, Minneapolis, MN about $4 million, and $2 million in Portland, OR.
• Graffiti is the most common type of property vandalism (35%) according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
• Immediate removal - within 24-48 hours - is the key to successful graffiti prevention.
• There are four types of graffiti-hip-hop, gang, hate, and generic (non-threatening messages like "Bobby loves Suzy" or "Class of 2003").
• About 80% of graffiti is hip hop or "tagger" graffiti. Another 5% are "pieces". Nationally, gang graffiti makes up about 10% of graffiti.
• Most studies show the majority of "taggers" are males between 12 and 21 years old. Approximately 15% of graffiti vandals are young females.
• Arrest data from 17 major cities shows that 50% to 70% of all street-level graffiti is created by suburban adolescents, predominately males between the ages of 12 and 19.
• Community paint-brush murals are rarely defaced by graffiti and instill a sense of pride among those who live nearby.

• There are four primary motivating factors for graffiti vandalism: fame, rebellion, self-expression, and power.
• Getting the media to publish photos and videotape of graffiti is often the ultimate fame for graffiti vandals.

“Information supplied courtesy of Graffiti Hurts (www.graffitihurts.org) © 2007 Keep America Beautiful, Inc. All rights reserved.”

The mission of Graffiti-GONE! is to eliminate the presence of graffiti, and its reoccurrence in our community.