Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The city’s public environments are meant to be perceived as safe and inviting areas to visit any time of the day. In recent decades the number of vandalism complaints has doubled and graffiti has become so common that it received a separate category in the crime statistics. With this type of impacts in the public environments the experience are precarious and a boring sight. It’s difficult to put a price tag on these types of crimes, the number of unreported cases suspected to be large. The Swedish associations of city council estimate that graffiti costs Swedish municipalities around 500 million Swedish kronor each year.
The purpose of this essay has been to summarize the strategies and techniques used to reduce vandalism and graffiti against public environments and how to combine them to solve a specific crime. The Swedish National Crime Prevention Council, BRÅ, have through different investigations gather the most common strategies and techniques used in Swedish municipalities. The statistics have also been used to systematize strategies against vandalism as both these types of crime, vandalism and graffiti, often have the same upcoming and can be solved using the same approach. BRÅ:s survey forms the basis for this work implementation.
The literature review shows that there are many ways working against graffiti and vandalism. For example graffiti removal to the rapid dissemination of information, monitoring and mapping of graffiti and/or vandal. There are little scientific evidence that supports the strategies and methods that are picked up, even if it is the most commonly used according to BRÅ:s study. The work is therefore based on experience-based materials, reports and newspapers.
This essay shows that there is no universal strategy or method that works in all situations and against both graffiti and vandalism. Usually a number of strategies and methods are combined to achieve the goal. The choice of strategy and technic depends on the unique situation and the general environmental conditions.