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By Greg Bartlett

Graffiti has been a problem around the world for many years. Many young people with too much time on their hands find it enjoyable to vandalize the property of others with their graffiti “art”. Unfortunately, since most of the time graffiti appears during the night, law enforcement officers have not been able to stop it from occurring.

GPS and Graffiti

However, a new solution has been tested and proven to work in Escondido, California. Believe it or not, a GPS tracking device is being used to catch graffiti artists. This seems puzzling. How can a tracking device that sends out signals to a satellite to report its location be helpful in discovering who is involved in vandalizing local stores? What could the GPS tracking device be used to track?

The answer may not be obvious, but it is a fairly simple one. The law enforcement officers in Escondido, California purchased a special digital camera with GPS tracking location technology. When the camera is used to photograph the acts of graffiti around the town, the GPS tracking system inside records the date, time, and exact location of that graffiti. This information can then be downloaded onto a computer for analyzing.

Since most graffiti artists vandalize stores and city property around their own homes, this GPS tracking enabled camera can be used to draw a circle of crimes around the vandal’s home. Many stores in Escondido, in fact, spend up to $300 every week cleaning graffiti off of their walls, only to have it reappear a few days later. The fact that these stores are considered favorite graffiti locations is proof that they are within a short distance of the graffiti artist’s home.

Eventually, the law enforcement officers receive enough information to notice patterns in the graffiti. With the assistance of an art expert who has some knowledge of graffiti, they can identify particular instances of vandalism as being from the same person. This is important, because it allows them to change a young vandal with as many of their crimes as possible, instead of just the one that the individual was arrested for. Charging vandals with more crimes means that businesses can recover more of the money that they have spent fixing up their stores after they have been vandalized.

In the last year, the amount that local businesses have received for vandalism has increased by almost ten times.
Thanks to GPS tracking devices, graffiti artists around the world will have to face the charges for their crimes and repay the city and local businesses for the damage that they have caused.