Phoenix "Graffiti Busters" Clean 50% More Sites

The City of Phoenix "Graffiti Busters" program cleaned a record high 95,000 graffiti sites in the 2007-08 fiscal year that ended June 30. That represents a 50% increase over the previous year's record of 63,000 sites. Tim Boling, Deputy Director of the city's Neighborhood Services Department, attributes much of the increase to improvements in the program's efficiency.

For example, he says, they've added paint-matching equipment to the maintenance trucks. Previously, crews had to scan the background wall color, return to their shop to mix the paint to match, and then return to the site the next day to paint it. Now, they can color-match paint on the spot. As a result, a crew can typically clean and re-paint a graffiti site, start to finish, in 20 to 30 minutes.

In other cases, where painting isn't an option or isn't required, such as on signs, crews remove the paint chemically or by power-washing.

At sites where taggers return and re-vandalize recently-cleaned areas, the city can install motion-sensitive cameras which record video of movement in the area. The video can then be taken to neighborhood officers or school resource officers, who often recognize the vandals, leading to their arrest.

Graffiti Busters also has a free program in which neighborhood groups and businesses are provided with free paint, tools, and training to clean graffiti in their areas. For more information on that, call (602) 495-0323.

If you see a graffiti vandal in action, call 911. If you think you know who might be committing graffiti in your area, call the graffiti reward hotline, (602) 262-7327.