The City of Burnaby and the RCMP have added another tool to their kit in the fight against graffiti vandalism, an initiative called 'Beyond the Wall' aimed at deterring youth from the criminal subculture.
It's been about a year since the NOW spoke with Const. Shelby Murphy, anti-graffiti coordinator with the Burnaby RCMP, and since then she's been hard at work developing this new program, which combines both education and prevention.
"We've created a subprogram that works with our restorative justice program, and along side it, it's called Beyond the Wall and it's for our youths," she said.
While Murphy said the development process was slow, the anti-graffiti taskforce is on its way to building a strong program for youths in the community.
"A lot of the times it is our youths being caught and usually it's probably because they're just not as experienced in graffiti as the adults are," she said.
Beyond the Wall works alongside the RCMP's restorative justice program to help educate youths before they are arrested and charged for graffiti vandalism, she said.
The program works like this: when police catch a youth vandalizing property with graffiti - or suspect them of doing so - but they don't have enough evidence to charge them, the RCMP contact the youth's parents. Officers then visit the homes of these youths and present them, along with their parents, with information about the risks involved in the graffiti subculture and the negative impact it can have on a young person's life, Murphy said.
Part of the goal of these presentations is to show youths there are alternatives to participating in criminal activities, she said.
"We're trying to work with (youths) to help give back to the community and provide other opportunities in their lives that maybe they didn't have before," she said.
Murphy noted that often parents aren't even aware their child is involved in the vandalism. Beyond the Wall provides parents ways to identify if their child is part of the graffiti vandalism subculture.
"For parents to actually be given the tools to understand what it means to be involved in the subculture and what to look for when (the child is) at home, gives them more of an opportunity to get more involved with the child," she said.
Murphy reminds the community that these presentations are indeed a form of punishment.
"They need to understand that there's another criminal element involved in graffiti vandalism," she said. "A lot of the older guys that are involved in graffiti vandalism are also involved in other types of criminal offences."
And Murphy said many of these older taggers evade arrest, simply because they're more experienced. This leaves the younger offenders vulnerable and most often, caught by RCMP.
"School liaison officers will generally be the ones who come in contact with the kids when they're in school, or it will be our general duty police officers that catch them after hours or outside of the school," she said.
Most graffiti arrests are made when members of the public phone in the crime while it's in progress, Murphy said. It can be more difficult after the fact, unless there is strong evidence to identify the suspect.
Along with the Beyond the Wall program, the Burnaby RCMP and the City of Burnaby are in the middle of developing another program for elementary and high schools.
"That would go for students as a whole, not just for ones that are caught. So that would be the educational piece they would need to kind of understand that there's another criminal element involved in graffiti vandalism," she said.
Murphy said while these programs are still in the rough stage of development, she expects they'll include a multimedia presentation along with discussions with students.
