It is sprawled on the bathroom stalls in sharpie and on the tops of desks in pencil. It covers everything it touches — roads and bridges and garage doors. Sprayed by artistic teenagers or painted by gangs to claim territory, it can be found from downtown DC to rural Great Falls.
“It’s a misdemeanor to do graffiti,” school resource officer Tom Harrington explained. “You can be charged with the removal of it, and that can go into the thousands of dollars, depending upon … how big it is.”
According to Harrington, graffiti, if it deals with racial, religious or other slurs can also be charged as a hate crime.
“We’re still looking out for people who are doing it, because some of what they’re doing is of a derogatory nature,” he said.
Graffiti with caustic messages does turn up in the school; sexually explicit writings turn up on bathroom walls alongside the occasional racially or ethnically offensive comment.
“It offends me if the messages are directed toward me or a group I am classified as a part of,” sophomore Dirk Edison said.
Members of the administration also expressed concern about the gang-related implications of graffiti, though Harrington said gang tags have been less prominent this year.
“I live in the District, so … I can come out of my neighborhood and see where a particular artist has left his or her mark on the sides of people’s houses, on businesses, on public property and it’s not respectful of other people’s property,” Pearson said. “How would they feel if I came and wrote my name on their front door?”
Some students rationalize graffiti by pointing out its artistic sensibilities.
“I think graffiti is art,” Edison said.
History teacher Roy Wood agreed, though he said that most graffiti has more of a social or political message than a pure artistic expression.
“Graffiti is an agenda-oriented art,” he said.
Pearson, too, admitted that some graffiti has artistic value.
“It can be artistic. I certainly view it and say “wow, okay, that might look nice,” on one level, but on another level, it’s someone else’s personal property, then they’re going to have to have that removed and there’s costs to that,” he said.
Harrington, while he appreciates the artistic nature of some of the work, maintains that graffiti is not the answer.
“If you’re an artist, go find a pegboard or something.”