A wall located on 43rd Street in Sunnyside that is often vandalized (Queens Post: Sept. 2020)
March 3, 2021 By Michael Dorgan
The NYPD announced a new initiative Wednesday that will see the police team up with local communities to combat graffiti across the city.
The initiative, called the “Graffiti Clean-Up” campaign, will see the NYPD use information submitted by the public to identify graffiti hotspots – and then help community volunteers clean it up. The campaign is expected to kick-off as soon as the weather improves, the NYPD said.
The police say they want to erase the blight of graffiti. They say it is costly for property owners and also diminishes people’s perception of a neighborhood. In addition, it can often be related to drug and gang violence.
“The perils of this costly and often obscene vandalism that can mar a neighborhood, create the perception of disorder and lead to further quality of life and crime problems,” NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a press briefing.
“Together, our prompt clean-ups will reclaim our public spaces, deter the reoccurrence of damaging graffiti and build pride in common living spaces.”
Today, @NYPDShea, along with @NYPDDetectives, @NYPDChiefPatrol, and @NYPDCommAffairs, announced a new collaborative effort to erase the blight of graffiti in shared public spaces.
Watch the full announcement ? pic.twitter.com/1qForq8LF8
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) March 3, 2021
The announcement comes after the NYPD said it received more than 6,000 complaints last year about graffiti. The city had typically allocated $3 million a year to a graffiti clean-up program called Graffiti-Free NYC but the program was suspended in March 2020 due to budget cuts.
Under the NYPD’s new initiative, police are calling on the public to identify areas that need cleaning. Residents are being asked to speak to cops directly on the street or make suggestions via a new email address that has been set up by the NYPD that is dedicated to tackling graffiti.
The email address, Graffiti@nypd.org, will be monitored by a dedicated officer from the Chief of Department’s office and residents are also being encouraged to submit photos of areas targeted by graffiti.
The information will then be distributed to local police precincts, police service areas and transit districts throughout the five boroughs. Police commanders will then collaborate with community leaders to form teams of volunteers and police crews to clean up the graffiti.
The NYPD will prioritize its cleanup efforts when it comes to hate crimes. Photo: Assembly Member Dan Rosenthal looks at a fence in Forest Hills targeted by anti-Semitic vandals in December (Image provided by Rosenthal)
Members of the Law Enforcement Explorers Program, auxiliary police officers and cadets will assist the NYPD during clean-up operations. The non-profit group Police Athletic League will also take part. All volunteers will also receive a T-shirt from the Chief of Community Affairs.
Hate graffiti – or graffiti that includes offensive slogans or symbols – will be prioritized for clean-up, the NYPD said. Gang-related graffiti tags to mark a territory or warning signs made to rivals will be investigated by police.
The NYPD said that it will also coordinate with the public to come up with preventative ideas that will deter future acts of graffiti.
The measures would include increasing the lighting of an area, installing motion-sensor lights or sprinklers to discourage vandals.
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23 Comments
I thought this was considered street by many liberals and progressives. I read that a good number of them have graffiti tours and charge fees to tourists to take them through low income graffiti filled neighborhoods for selfies.
The liberals made graffiti legal by a new law
…but who stole my fairy doors?
People saying “back to the 70s” obviously didn’t live here in the 70s.
The idiots who were rioting this summer and calling for police to be defunded helped create this environment
Enjoy it !
out of control, I would like to place blame on the lack of leadership and trashing of the police and the police not wanting to get involved in petty crimes like this because no one appreciates them anymore. Its a snowball effect which starts with liberals and no bail and idiots with spray cans feeling like they will never be punished.
Texas and Oklahoma two of the most conservative states in the nation did a huge overhaul and reformed their prison system, court system and bail policies.
If you don’t arrest people for quality of life crimes then crime is low. P.S. Google isn’t too trustworthy either.
Susan – Google is just a search engine that takes the user to resource locations.,Google is not the creator of the data. FBI and local law enforcement are the creators of FBI data in question.
I know what Google is and I also know how data is manipulated.
@Susan – From your post, it appears you don’t know what google is. However in your defense you appear to know a bit about data manipulation. Your avoidance of the use of crime “categories” and to close your statement with a blanket assertion is the definition of data manipulation.
Democrats always have been and always will be soft on crime. Their marxist ideology makes them view criminals as the eternal victims who would never do such things if only we’d adopt communism.
Karl-Crime in general ( graffiti is vandalism and not included in summary). is directly related to education and poverty levels. Fact. Highest crime US states are also the poorest and least educated.Mississippi, Alabama. Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi, for starters.,
Poverty doesn’t cause crime but crime does cause poverty because those with the means leave. This is one of the most flaunted misinformation talking points pushed by liberals. There are many poor impoverished areas throughout the world where crime isn’t rampant. There are many here in the worst neighborhoods of nyc that are not criminals and are quite poor. It’s how your raised, your values, your family, and having a basic understanding of right and wrong. It’s your upbringing. Money and skin color have nothing to do with it but unfortunately there is a warped mindset of elites and privileged that use cleaver but flawed arguments to manipulate other. Some desperate people believe them, others use it as a tool of agenda, but ultimately poverty is not the source of crime. The they just need bread argument is garbage.
@Anonymous – The post does not say poverty causes crime, it says “ it is directly related”.
Hahaha The tale of two posts. The first one states facts, references and sources. The second is filled with buzz words like elitists and liberals. The opening pretends to be addressing the post when the word “causes” never appears in the comment. Basically,the answer to the question nobody asked. Vague reference phrases like “there are many here” and “some desperate people believe them”. It’s a simple four sentence comment, I’m sure you could be a little more specific if you were looking for an actual discussion.
One of the reasons for the correlation is the use of a progressive taxation system within a consumer driven market economy. Higher salaries the more for tax coffers, once decent paying jobs are gone and only low wage jobs remain there is less money for tax coffers. Services diminish, quality of life slides and more more leave and nobody wants to live in the area because of the poorer quality of life issues A circle or cycle is created. NYC is a different landscape for the reason you have the wealthiest zip codes in the nation next to the poorest (assembly district, city council districts and congressional districts fall over multiple zip codes).
@ Anonymous- Are you saying poor people have no values? Not everybody has or had the money to fraudulently get out of their responsibility of serving in the military with fake doctor notes.
A legal defense is just like any other commodity, you get what pay for.
And where is almost all the crime committed? In the democrat controlled cities ,nice try fool.
Big Jim- Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and Alaska have crime higher then most large cities.
Fact. These areas aren’t densely populated like NYC, Chicago, Washington DC. Fact major metropolitan cities attract more poor people because they are more subsidized in terms of affordable housing, welfare, free meals ( ala San Francisco). Fact these major metropolitan cities have a lot more illegal aliens who are more like inclined of committing crimes aside from breaking a federal law of being here illegally.
Fact Check – Please provide your fact check sources. Many rural areas of America have exponentially more illegal aliens in reference to their population than cities do.