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Protect Your Skate Park

Protect Your Skate Park

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If your community has a skate park then you know protecting it and keeping it clean from trash, vandalism, and graffiti is challenging.  And if the park is not kept clean the reputation of the park is at stake.  When the skate park’s reputation takes a downturn, it can turn into an avalanche.

Skate parks are designed and implemented into the community to improve the park experience. According to the Tony Hawk Foundation, a majority of police-enforcement officers consider their skate park to be an asset and is a positive addition to the park.  This is good news.

Skate parks add so much fun for the community for adults and children alike.  The positive aspect of this type of activity is endless.    A lot of children today are over-weight and need activities that entice them to get out and move.  Skate boarding is an activity that does just that.

However, trash, graffiti, and vandalism are some of the major issues at a skate park and will damage the reputation of the park.  Once graffiti and vandalism have started, it is a battle to keep it away.  Even worse graffiti and vandalism attract more serious crimes.  An upkept Skate Park is also less appealing and gives off the sense that the park is not safe.  An abandoned Skate Park will fall prey to all sorts of crimes that a park’s department will not want to deal with.

To prevent negative behavior and quality of life crimes that threaten the reputation of the skate park, measures need to be taken.

Skate Park Cameras are designed to specifically stop negative behavior at parks. They are not just cameras that passively take pictures.

Protect your Skate Park from Quality-of-Life Crimes!

How to Enforce Social Distancing in Public Spaces

How to Enforce Social Distancing in Public Spaces

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Enforcing social distancing has become a fierce challenge for cities of all sizes and cultures.  Most people who are being defiant are well behaved citizens, under normal circumstances.

Most park officials and enforcement officers do not want to be tasked with the unpleasant duty of removing citizens from public places, especially if it involves legal enforcement. 

The solution is deterrence. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a deterrent is “serving to discourage, prevent or inhibit”

But how does one deter the community from enjoying a park they have come to love and enjoy?  A park your department has worked so hard to create for the public to enjoy. There is a tool that can help with this distasteful responsibility.

Traditional surveillance systems do not have the immediate presence needed in these unique times.  The best tool must have a presence that distracts the groups from their activity and redirects their thoughts to do what they know is responsible. Public Nuisance Cameras that are used for deterring vandalism and graffiti are designed to modify behavior. Their feature of deterrence is the main value. 

It is the deterrence that is needed to enforce social distancing.

No graffiti tonight

Stop School Graffiti

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Over the Christmas weekend, a school in Bundaberg Australia experienced graffiti on their walls.  The vandals painted “tags and vulgar language” with flares on the side of the school building. Bundaberg‘s relieving officer-in-command, Glen Cameron, states, “Over the school holidays police actively increase their patrols in these areas in an attempt to prevent offences like this occurring.” Graffiti in schools does not just occur in a vacuum. If police increased their patrols, what are locals doing in stopping school graffiti?

“But assistance from members of the public goes a long way to preventing antisocial behavior in and around school grounds.”, says Cameron. The police can only do so much. They enforce the law and prevent nuisance crimes as much as their resources and tools allow them, but vandalism in schools is a social problem that communities need to address.  Preventing “antisocial behavior” could lead to preventing vandalism in schools.

The fact that “vulgar language” is being sprayed on school property asks two questions. Why is the language vulgar? And why does it happen on school grounds? Teenagers can be rebellious and sometimes antisocial toward society, but who sets their boundaries? They do, but initially boundaries  start at the home. Vulgar language is probably used by their friend groups and local communities. Once “vulgar language” is spoken, usually others copy.

The next question is why at a school? The school gives them homework, has rules, and has authority. Vandals probably don’t like authority, and the school becomes the perfect target. These antisocial crimes do not just occur without reason. Being anti-authoritative could be one of the causes. The Center for Police-Oriented Policing says graffiti sprayers are usually associated with other illegal activity. There is a culture that goes along with graffiti spraying, and usually, it is not positive.

The police of Bundaberg urge the community to contact the police if anyone sees suspicious activity around the schools. Why didn’t anyone contact them? Did no one see them? That could be true, but part of being a community is being aware of suspicious activity. Communities around the globe should be actively setting consistent boundaries and be aware of unusual local activity. Seeking ways to create a culture that stops school graffiti can be hard, but should be done, because it starts with “assistance” from the community.