BY HEIDI
ULRICHSEN
Youths who scribble on buildings with spray paint and markers
just don't understand that graffiti hurts other people, says
Alexander Public School principal Lisa Piquette.
The woman hopes this kind of ignorance will soon be a thing of
the past. She is one of the organizers behind a community
coalition formed a year ago to combat the city's graffiti
problem.
Two local school boards - the Rainbow District School Board
and the Sudbury Catholic District School Board - are working
with the city, the local police and Downtown Sudbury to educate
students about the negative aspects of graffiti.
"I don't think that students understood that graffiti is a
crime before we started this program. They never really made
the connection between how having an area that's full of
graffiti can make you feel unsafe and make you not want to go
in that area," Piquette says.
About 500 students from 30 schools will participate in
Graffiti Eradication Day Oct. 4. They will remove graffiti from
buildings near their school with paint and special cleaning
solutions. Police officers will accompany each school group.
"Last June, we had another community-wide graffiti eradication day. I was at C.R. Judd Public School at the time.
What an empowering thing for them. They felt that they were
doing work that was valued by the community," says the
principal.
"They felt a strong ownership of the area. Afterwards, we were getting comments like 'Nobody better come and put graffiti on this area again, or we're just going to remove it again and outlast them'."
Participating students will look around their neighbourhoods in
the next few weeks to find graffiti. If graffiti is located on
a private building, the school's principal will phone the owner
to ask permission for students to remove it.
People interested in having graffiti removed during the student blitz are asked to phone the police crime prevention unit at 675-9171, ext. 2103. The operator will pass on the request to the principal of a nearby participating school.
Police go into the schools and give presentations about the
negative aspects of graffiti.
"We have a PowerPoint presentation where we have examples of graffiti that's been photographed here in Sudbury," says Greater Sudbury Police media relations officer Const. Bert Lapalme.
"We try to define art and graffiti as being two different
things. Even though there is some graffiti that tends to be
artistic, it's still a criminal offence. People are doing this
on walls where they don't have permission."
Lapalme explains to students that "graffiti costs us all."
Schools have to spend thousands of dollars to remove graffiti
every year, and that money could be spent on new textbooks or
computers.
Graffiti emerged as a big problem in the city two years ago,
Lapalme says. He hopes the school anti-graffiti program will
make a difference.
"We really started to see a lot of graffiti start taking
place here in Sudbury in 2004. A lot of groups and individuals
were tagging certain areas. We could see the same symbols over
and over in certain parts of the city. It's an eyesore."
The police have charged several "graffiti artists" over the
past few years with mischief to property, which carries a
maximum jail sentence of two years less a day.  The
culprits are usually youths between 16 and 18 years old, he
says.
"People can go to jail for doing graffiti," he says. "A lot of people think it's only graffiti. But it's vandalism and mischief. The actual charge is mischief to property under $5,000 or mischief to property over $5,000, depending on the severity."
