| I agree with gunnar on this one.
Our house was tagged one night and that day that we saw it, we had it painted over by that evening. This does two things. 1) by painting over it, it deters the gang from tagging it again because the property owners give a shit and won't let their property be a "territory" of that gang. 2) It prevents neighbors and the same property from being tagged by rival gangs.
leaving it out there is probably one of the dumbest ideas. The gangs get satisfaction by seeing their colors and numbers on the sides of houses, fences, garages, and police stations. If you paint over it immediately they will see that there is no use tagging there and paint and some person who is too lazy to cover it up. They are smart enough to know what is and isn't worth their time tagging.
Think of it like this. Your kid is acting up and throwing a tantrum...pay attention and the tantrum continues. Remove attention and the kid flys right. Same with the gangs. You remove all the attention from them i.e. press coverage and leaving the tags, then they will be deterred from tagging.
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There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.
Andrew Jackson |