Late last week, Dauphin RCMP arrested an individual for spray painting graffiti on a sign in Dauphin's rail yard, and was charged with mischief under $5,000 for the offence.
We spoke with Cpl. Jason Shaw with Dauphin RCMP about some of the costs of graffiti. Most people have a similar stance on graffiti to piracy, with it being a more "victimless crime". Cpl. Shaw says that couldn't be further from the truth.
"There's the cost within the community, property values as well as just the visual effect of what it does to a community...[victims] often have costs out of pocket if they were to try to clean up the vandalism, or if they have to make an insurance claim, again it's costs out of pocket, but it also drops the property value," said Cpl. Shaw.
Dauphin is no stranger to vandalism and graffiti. Recently, the City temporarily closed access to the skate park near the train station to do a deep clean and get rid of some graffiti. Cpl. Shaw said grafitti is often a sign of more serious underlying issues within a community.
"Vandalism is often an indication of other criminal activity in areas, we see lots of vandalism, spray painting, tagging, that type of stuff in known drug areas, as well as known gang areas," said Cpl. Shaw.
More often than not, when graffiti and vandalism affects businesses, that can raise prices. It's not very cheap to clean up graffiti.
"So if vandalism is continuous and happening, then that can be built into the price of the product or the service, and then customers, the general public, have to pay higher amounts for these products to help cover that off," said Cpl. Shaw.
And if you're the one behind the can? You may think you'll get off light, but Cpl. Shaw says that's definitely not the case. If you're thinking of tagging, think again. Anyone caught spray painting graffiti or other forms of vandlism almost always faces a charge of mischief, and a lot of fines.
"If it's a large cleanup and it's costly, it can be in the thousands of dollars, as far as any time in regards to jail, it's really dependant on what the judge and the lawyers decice. Typically we don't see people receive jail time for mischief, but often there's hefty fines, as well as conditions imposed by the court for them to abide by," said Cpl. Shaw.
Vandalism is far from victimless: it affects everyone in the community.
