Graffiti isn’t a violent crime, but it’s not victimless; Baltimore should clean it up

Somebody hit the park across from Mercy Medical Center on St. Paul Street. Splattered across a brick wall recently in white spray paint: ONE STOP FUN!! — in a park that is supposed to be a place of serenity, mind you. A few feet away on another brick wall: the letters RZ and a smiley face. Undecipherable letters were scrawled in paint across the bottom of a billboard sitting prominently above a HipHop Fish & Chicken restaurant near State Center, promoting a University of Maryland Medical System hospital. (The sign was promptly removed and a medical center spokeswoman said Clear Channel, the owner of the billboard, would replace it at no cost.) More fresh graffiti was found recently on the ramp to get onto I-83 by Penn Station. Bridges have been hit especially hard.

Noempty space in Baltimore seems to be safe. Parking meters, sidewalks, sides of buildings and rowhomes, federal post office boxes, fences, street signs, the doors to businesses, the pillars that hold up the Jones Falls Expressway near where the farmer’s market is held each Sunday — all have become victims of graffiti. These were just a handful of the graffiti-sprawled parts of the city a member of the editorial board saw on a recent Sunday drive. Even art displays meant to beautify city streets have gotten hit by the spray paint can.

It appears graffiti vandals have taken advantage of the quiet of the streets caused by the pandemic? And we say “vandals” very deliberately, because this is not the type of art you would find at the city’s Graffiti Alley. That might be more tolerable. No, most of it amounts to no more than haphazard scribbles. Like a toddler who got to the house walls when no one was looking.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on when looking at statistics on graffiti complaints from the Department of Public Works. There were 1,580 complaints from March through Oct. 23. That same time last year there were 2,337 cases. Were the cases actually down, or were too many people inside to notice and report it? Nobody really knows. What we do know is a lot of the graffiti didn’t get cleaned up early on during the pandemic when services were in flux. Most city services, including graffiti removal, were suspended from March until at least June. During that period, just about half of the graffiti cases reported were closed. (The department has since cleared more cases than reported). That’s understandable; there were more pressing issues to worry about.

Since then, Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young has cut graffiti services from the DPW budget as part of cost-saving measures, and now individual departments, such as the Department of Transportation or the Department of General Services, are now responsible for graffiti. So it is hard to track what is being cleaned up. And that is just for public property. Housing inspectors with the Baltimore City of Housing & Community Development handle enforcement of graffiti on private property, which is the owner’s responsibility to clean up.

How the city’s graffiti problem got to this point is not as important as how we get out of it. We understand the obstacles to catch the culprits defacing property. They do it in the dark of night when no one is around. However, we can’t help but wonder if the city’s extensive camera network could also be used to identify people. Or maybe the ring cameras of businesses and residents? Officials say they are generally not fining people and trying to work with them; we recommend they cover up their work as punishment.

Graffiti doesn’t rise to the level of murders, larceny, carjackings and other serious crimes, of course. But its presence hurts the psyche and image of the city, much like dirty alleyways and litter. It contributes to a sense of lawlessness and an anything goes mentality in the city.

So, if the city can’t catch the culprits, it needs to do a better job of cleaning up what they leave behind in public spaces and helping affected property and business owners. If you agree, reach out to your elected officials to let them know. Nobody wants to be responsible for a problem they did not create, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone has to be.