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City Parks and Crime

City Parks and Crime

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Criminal activity at community parks creates a variety of effects on society, from fear of the area to complete avoidance of the park. Crime in city parks has an impact on the perception of the city to the public that can deter new people from moving into the community. This as well causes residents to move out of the area, halting economic growth. But what types of crimes are happening near or in city parks?

According to several reports, larceny seems to be the most prevalent crime. Most of the parks’ theft-related offenses involve property stolen from parked vehicles. Second to cars broken into and burglary of property stolen out of the vehicle is an actual auto-theft of the vehicle. There is also a high number of attempted pedestrian robberies including armed robbery. The majority of these pedestrian larcenies are aggravated assaults, and some lead to homicides.

Following pedestrian robberies and assaults are nuisance crimes, such as illegal fly-tipping, and those that deface the park property known as park vandalism and graffiti. This usually displays itself in the form of a can of spray paint and drawn obscenities, with written curse words and other offensive language. These nuisance crimes typically happen at nighttime when common surveillance cameras cannot view the area, and where there is little to no lighting. All of this, of course, affects the outlook of the area for whomever else visits the community besides its city residents. Nuisance crimes also invite more serious crimes, creating a down roll spiral of the community safety.

Protecting our city parks means protecting its community residents. A park’s appearance attracts its company. Therefore, by deterring nuisance crimes like park vandalism, we will also be deterring more violent crimes by default. Protect our parks and protect the people in it and all around it, rather during the day or at night. You can’t stop a crime with surveillance alone, but you have a much greater chance at stopping crime if there are effective Park Vandalism Deterrent Systems, specifically designed to stop unwanted activity in parks.

Our city parks and their communities deserve better. Protect your community park and chase criminal activity away.

Stopping Vandalism and Juvenile Crime-Parks

Stopping Vandalism and Juvenile Crime-Parks

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It is difficult to stop vandalism and juvenile crime at parks. Scribbles in permanent ink marking a territory. At the favorite place to ride… a vulgar image done with a can of spray paint that can be seen from outer space. Nasty words written inside a slide tunnel at a children’s playground. This is known as graffiti, and it is prevalent amongst our youth.

Maybe there’s that one kid that is actually a fantastic artist but doesn’t have anywhere else to vent their decorative literacy. Sometimes it’s because they don’t feel socially accepted anywhere, so they play school hooky and ride their bike to the local skatepark for the soul purpose of finding a solitary place to do what they want. Sometimes it is not for the purpose of being a loner, so they recruit a couple friends to follow suit. Maybe some creative kid is truly, deeply angry at another kid, or maybe they’re just an angry individual due to a youth mental-illness or for other reasons.

Regardless of the individual and underdeveloped reasoning behind a child’s poor decision to vandalize… it’s a well-known fact that kid’s copy other kids. And whomever, or sometimes whatever, is their strongest influence you can bet they will take it on and add it to their collection of role models. It’s a pattern we see in all youth, including and sometimes especially in teens. Unfortunately, Youth Incarceration is currently very high in the United States. It really, truly does not have to be this way. Although it is one great thing to have a Juvenile Detention Reform, that is a big responsibility to take on and one must know what they’re doing in order to truly help reform the youth vandal. One place to start is by cleaning up the child’s playground environment, so that another kid is not influenced by their unique form of talents that should be better displayed elsewhere. Clean recreation areas are known to have healthier impacts on our kids.

However, cleaning up the same old illicit scribbles over and over can get old quickly, not to mention expensive. Instead, the Park Director should focus more on Graffiti Deterrence and Vandalism Prevention, rather than on the energy spent painting over the same wall time and time again. That energy and extra finances could be better spent on helping our juveniles become better adults. And maybe, those kids will turn around to be the best graffiti prevention out of them all!

What is your park doing to prevent vandalism?

Parks Environmental Protection

Parks Environmental Protection

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Parks and Recreation Directors are people who care about the environment. They know how beautiful, well-kept parks have historically proven many societal benefits, as well as the environmental protection it provides.  Which is why they use the resources necessary to keep our parks clean and free from improper waste disposal, infamously known as illegal dumping.

Unfortunately, abatements of illegal waste costs the government, as well as the law-abiding, tax-paying citizens dollar amounts that can run into the millions, sometimes billions per year.   These accounts could preferably be spent on better upkeep care and preservation of the environment, rather than spending it on the environmental cleanups of illegal and absolutely preventable dumping.

Parks Directors understand that garbage, dumped illegally by thoughtless individuals, harms the environment.  If debris is dumped at a publicly accessible area, this can be dangerous to people.  It is an injury threat if discarded scrap is dumped in an area where children play, or where people play sports, such as near a playground or in a recreational area.  Illegal dumping sites might also contain toxic waste, which can be detrimental to human health.   When illegal waste dumped contains toxic materials that cause a hostile environment to parks, it not only makes it unsafe for people, but it simultaneously kills off the wildlife, and it poisons the habitat of the plants and the trees.

When all the good people, all the innocent wild animals and all the beautiful gardens and plants are gone, that’s when crime increases.  The homeless population moves into the park, and it becomes a common dumping site.  Not only is this waste dumping a form of environmental vandalism in and of itself, but the site of trash everywhere will cause other, thoughtless vandals to further disrespect the park, and other types of vandalism such as graffiti and property destruction may become more prevalent.  The park at this point could become a gang territory as well.  It is also easier to hide other unlawful activity in an environment like this, and it could very well become a hot spot for illegal drugs and violent crime.

This very sad domino-effect has an overall negative impact on society.  The numbers of negative side effects of a bad environment add up in droves, which is why the Directors of Parks and Recreation are good at taking extra heed to prevent all types of crime, such as illegal dumping, from ever becoming a crisis.  It’s all about nipping illegal dumping in the bud before it blossoms into a full bloom environmental catastrophe.

Environmental protection starts with crime prevention.

Protect Your Park from Vandalism

Protect Your Park from Vandalism

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Parks are essential to the community and should be protected. The harsh reality is protecting the park from vandalism and graffiti is a daunting task. Unfortunately, it is estimated $12 billion is being relegated to the clean up of graffiti in the United States alone. Cleaning up graffiti is immensely expensive. The unbridled practice of graffiti and vandalism is crippling our government’s ability to maintain a high standard of life for American citizens. Vandalism, even in the form of graffiti, is ultimately governmental revenue being thrown in the trash. Vandalism is nothing more than a money pit.

It is difficult to apprehend vandals and graffiti “artists,” since anyone with a can of spray paint or mischievous thought can become one. Although graffiti artists and vandals are stereotyped as urban gangsters, the graffiti artist and vandal demographic are quite diverse. This makes apprehending vandals no easy task, they could be anyone. In combating graffiti and vandalism, it is essential to obtain the identity of the culprit.

The most effective way in which to identify graffiti artists and vandals is to set up cameras in crime hot spot locations. Unfortunately, most hot spots are in secluded areas where lighting and electricity are not available within the park, and it would be costly to install. Also, most cameras sold on the market cannot provide prosecutable images.

Fortunately, there are Park Vandalism Cameras that are specially designed to stop graffiti and vandalism. These Parks Vandalism Cameras are self-contained and portable, not needing lighting or electricity. The also provide unapparelled image resolution, allowing security to identify small tattoos at a great distance. Since graffiti and vandalism often occur in secluded areas or at night when there are less people around to witness the criminal activity, setting up Park Vandalism Cameras to keep constant watch over vulnerable property is the only way to prevent or at least punish the crime.

What is your community doing to protect your parks?

#novandalism #stopvandals #stopgraffiti #nograffiti #deterrence #publicworks