Both are wrong. Mindless, selfish vandalism. People think they have the 'right' to do it. A sense of entitlement and lack of respect for their fellow citizens. Ramp up the punishment for all of it.
Thameslink loos were being vandalised and graffitied before delivery I think… never seen one as the designer may have envisioned it. I certainly think with no guard there’s absolutely no sense of risk you may be caught.
Would a guard on board really make much of a difference to graffiti in train toilets? It can be very discreetly done.
I don’t think it would stop it, but the perceived chance of being caught (even if actually no higher than without a guard) would put off graffiti artists who are bored teenagers after a thrill, rather than the apparent professional middle aged taggers mentioned above.
It doesn't help that the drab livery and interior design of the 700s is like a blank canvas for vandals. There's a theory known as crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) which suggests that reducing attractive targets for vandals and improving the general aesthetics of an area can help reduce vandalism as a whole.
Thing is the vast majority of it is a handful of people. I suspect 10-30 people are responsible for the vast majority of it. It's a huge failing of the BTP to not arrest these 10 people; they know who they are (most of them have been to prison before for it).
Unless you catch them at it then you can't prove it is them. "Someone copied my tag."
Yuk!
that's a theory that I find to have a lot of merit. In my country the Hyundai Rotem E32000's used in Marmaray usually have their exteriors full of graffiti. However, because the trains are normally completely devoid of any colour besides grey (they did have more colorful livery when it first opened but they got rid of it because of reasons) the graffiti doesn't look bad and the trains do seem more a part of the city with it. I can publish photos but I don't want to derail the topic
Because BTP are a joke of a "police" force with little or no enforcement action.
Completely this. A few months back someone attacked me quite forcefully on this threat saying that so many hundreds of tags were being removed every week, but they clearly weren’t and had been there for months or not had a proper attempt at cleaning them so ended up still there but with this horrible smear. After the clean ups of the Bakerloo and Central, maybe we can turn our attention to the Thameslink loos next
I would argue that the fact that people are now saying the situation has got noticeably better is proof that what they said was true. Situations like this don't disappear overnight, clearly for whatever reason (Frequency of it being cleaned decreasing, or frequency of tagging increasing) the taggers were overwhelming the cleaning. That has clearly now reversed and they are back to being able to remove it quicker than it is done, but for there to now be such a notifiable difference there has to have been a long period of it slowly getting better.
