@runner

i agree it is largely due to the lack of education
as a nation, we are VERY poor at educating our children
i have long suspected that even the parents themselves needed education

i love to quote this incident to illustrate how sad a state we are in
this lady brought 3 of her young kids to a souvenir stall at a tourist spot in Queensland
there were some paper bags for sale with these words on it
"For all your Bxxxshit"
this lady demanded to see the stall manager and then gave him a lecture on how the sale of such paper bags in a public space will affect the upbringing of her children

on the way out, i saw this lady smoking while her 3 children were with her at the bench
i went over and told her what a hypocrite she was
she should set a good example as the sale of the paper bags is nothing but humour and the example she set for her children had a life long negative influence, not to mention the harmful second hand smoke

@paul

as i said, as long as permission is sought and owners or councils are agreeable to artform on their walls or benches, no one will object

i know in one of our neighbouring asian state, you get caned for willful extensive gaffiti, as in strokes of the barbaric rotan
as much as the likes of poirot will vehemently disagree, this severe punishment works !
There are hardly any vandalism.

and there are hardly any murders due to the death penalty too
again poirot will say there are still murders there
how naive
of course there will be a handful... such murders will happen whatever the punishment
at least the 90% potential murders were prevented because of the death sentence
and putting to death the convicted murderer will prevent him from committing more murders!
we have seen how convicted criminals in australia often commit repeated offences when they were on parole?

poirotism is a useful example of illogical thinking to avoid

I've got to confess I love graffitti art.
But then I love any form of self-expression
as long as it doesn't hurt or harm anyone else -
and with graffitti - I'm referring to private property.
Which should be a no-go zone.
I know how expensive it is for someone to put up a
new fence - only to find it wrecked by graffitti over-night.

I don't know what the answer is to stop young kids from
damaging private property - because nothing seems to
deter them. I'm not sure if there is some sort of
paint that can be used as a protective base that would
make it easier to clean the graffitti off. Or perhaps
assigning designated spaces especially for graffitti
by local councils. Or making the penalties stronger
for the abusers.

I'll have to do a bit more research on the subject
and see how other countries solve this problem.

I forgot to add that we saw "graffitti art"
in Mexico on sides of buildings which was amazing
and added to appearance of both the buildings
and the neighbourhood. Such art also exists in
designated places around our country.

There are I've been told specially formulated treatments
of surfaces which make the removal of graffitti easier
and are used by some councils to protect significant
buildings. Of course we can't paint the entire suburbia.
Maybe with time it will become mandatory to treat surfaces
on street frontages.

Attempts at banning the sale of spray-paints apparently has
not been very successful.

The fastest and only proven deterrent to tagging is too remove the tag within 24hrs. Don't give up, just keep removing (usually best to paint over) ASAP.

There are anti-graffiti paints but they are very expensive and require a particular complimentary solvent. repainting with the same colour is fast and efficient.

hmmmm.... i can see why there are still so much graffiti in this country

parents who would rather spend time and effort cleaning up the mess than to educate and discipline