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Park Vandalism Deterrent Program

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In order for communities to remain safe, the members of the community need to partner with the police force of their respective municipality. Neither police, nor community residents can successfully fend off crime on their own. The police have the muscle and equipment necessary to confront criminals head-on and apprehend them. However, community residents possess a more intimate knowledge of the specific problems which are plaguing their neighborhoods. Only by means of a partnership will criminals be effectively thwarted from carrying out their nefarious intentions in communities.

Unfortunately, police officers have come under immense suspicion in recent years. If there is to be any alliance formed between police and the communities they serve, trust must be re-established. A key component to forming trust is adopting a policy of transparency. Police need to keep their communities up to date on all relevant information regarding criminal activity and the police’s investigative and preventative response to said criminal activity. Once law enforcement agencies display their good will with a policy of transparency, citizens will be more likely to open up and share.

Citizens will be able to aid police in their law enforcement efforts if they are given the opportunity to and feel comfortable with sharing pertinent information regarding the workings of their neighborhoods. Police need to know where crimes are taking place and what kind of crimes they are. Nuisance crimes that affect quality of life, are often manifested in vandalism and graffiti, especially in parks.  These types of park crimes invite more hideous and violent crimes into the neighborhood.  If citizens are willing to work with the police to remove these types of crimes the overall crime will decrease.  To make the neighborhood safe, communities need implement a Park Vandalism Deterrent Program, which includes cameras designed specifically to stop vandalism and other nuisance crimes that plague parks.

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?

Social Media-Fight Against Park Vandalism

Social Media-Fight Against Park Vandalism

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In this day and age, where we are more connected than ever through social media, it is a wonder that more people have not utilized social media to fight crime, especially the more elusive ones like vandalism. Vandals love to operate after hours when no one is around so that they can commit their crimes with relative anonymity. This practice makes it incredibly difficult to catch vandals, however they do often leave behind audacious clues which can lead to their arrest. Leaving behind such incriminating clues is all due to the vandals’ egos.

Many criminals, including vandals, foolishly leave hints of their illegal activities on social media. You see, vandalism is often a highly visible crime like graffiti that is committed because vandals want to be recognized for their boldness and ferocity. Nevertheless, vandals still want to remain relatively anonymous so that they can avoid the legal repercussions of their actions. So, vandals will often leave pictures of themselves at the crime scene on their private social media page like Facebook. Vandals think that since their pages are private, that no one who would turn them in can see the incriminating evidence they post. Nevertheless, police have picked up on this trend and used the photos and other posts of vandals on social media to find and arrest them.

If you see any suspicious photos or comments on social media of friends or friends of friends, you can join the fight against vandalism.

Because we cannot always count on vandals to make sloppy mistakes, parks need other sure means of identifying and prosecuting criminals.  Parks suffering from vandalism and graffiti should use Park Vandalism Cameras, which are specially designed to identify a face or other unique feature like a tattoo, even in complete darkness.

#stopvandals #novandalism #playfair #publicworks