Regular Vandalism

Problem or Scenario

We received a request for the removal of an approved advertising seat on Coolibah Drive, Greenwood in November 2012

The seat was in an approved position for the use of advertising however a nearby resident advised the City that the seat was a meeting place for local vandals.

What we did

We assessed the area and other surrounding seats supplied to Greenwood. Using our analytics from the previous six months did show a spike in significant vandalism in the Greenwood area, with many ‘tags’ becoming repeatedly painted on our seats.

Our team agreed to remove the seat in question and put Coolibah Dr in Greenwood on a high priority with maintenance inspection.

We also gave the area the seat was placed a sweep and general tidy.

We then contacted the Warwick police station and the Goodbye Graffiti team at the City of Joondalup to inform them of our concern to not only our own assets, but other pieces of infrastructure and the walls of public buildings we noted were also damaged.

We installed small sign panels on the timber slats of the remaining seats in Greenwood that warned vandals of the surveillance being conduction by the police.

The Outcome

We saw a significant drop in vandalism in Greenwood. There was however a spike in vandalism in the nearby suburb of Girrawheen. We took the same approach to the Girrawheen area, using a police monitoring message on one of the pieces of timber. This was again effective.

This became policy – we started our police surveillance system of fixing the police monitor warning message to a timber slat of any seat that was significantly damaged more than three times in one week or seeing a regular ‘tag’ three times in a fortnight.

Police and Graffiti Control officers are now alerted also.