Peter hoped to make a name for himself by spraying and scratching his way across Auckland suburbs. The teenager from Mt Albert sought a strange sort of fame through tagging. But ultimately the use of the stylised six-lettered tag name saw him in court.

In the Auckland District Court, where the men's first floor toilet must rate as one of the most comprehensively tagged rooms in the city, he was sentenced to 12 months' supervision on two assault charges and ordered to complete 200 hours of community work on criminal damage charges.

He was also ordered to pay reparation of more than $12,000 for scratching his tagline into bus shelter glass panes and shop windows, as well as spray painting fences, a wall, lamp-post and a public toilet block in Mt Albert and Morningside between September last year and April.

Peter is not the tagger's real name for although he pleaded guilty his bid for fame was thwarted when Judge Cecilie Rushton ordered that his name and taglines be suppressed. "You will not have fame but a very large bill to pay," she said.

Peter's signature was a relatively recent and destructive form of graffiti imported from the streets of the United States and Australia - etching or scratching.

Using sandpaper or a small rock Peter etched his tag name into 21 glass bus shelter panels and several business front windows. At one Morningside business he caused $3000 worth of damage by etching four glass panels. Further along New North Rd he etched large glass windows of two Mt Albert shops, causing another $3000 damage.

In all, his spree, which included spray painting fences, a shop wall and a toilet block in Mt Albert, caused damage totalling $12,324, making him one of the worst graffiti offenders to come before the courts in Auckland.

Peter had already performed community service for previous tagging, and stopped briefly. But when he resumed last year his tag was identified by the Auckland City Council's anti-graffiti team.

Peter admitted his offending to police, explaining that "he wanted to be famous".

It is a motivation repeated by other taggers spoken to by the Weekend Herald.

One teenager who began tagging with pens in intermediate school says: "It's just another way of getting famous for people on the streets.

"You tell them [about your tags] or just do your name heaps of times. 'Oh,' they go, 'you are cool eh, you do that?"'

In its widest context graffiti is part of young New Zealanders' enthusiastic embrace of the US-born hip-hop dance, DJing and MC-ing culture. From simple three-letter tags scrawled on fences and shopfronts to elaborate works on large walls, it is the visual expression of hip-hop. The trouble, and part of the attraction, is that it's illegal.

In New Zealand most graffiti is the straight, spiky style of name tagging developed here in the 1980s.

The Auckland City Council, under pressure from residents upset at graffiti-covered arterial routes, introduced a zero tolerance policy three years ago. It had previously removed graffiti from council assets only, but the crackdown brought in a free removal service for private fences and walls along main roads.

At the frontline of the council campaign is Rob Shields, a former police officer with 22 years' experience.

As a senior community constable in Balmoral, Shields had conducted a small scale operation against graffiti in Balmoral and Mt Eden, which included getting offenders to paint out their work.

When the council approached him 18 months ago it had finished the three-month eradication phase of its zero tolerance policy. Contractors removed or painted over graffiti on 4500 properties. Any new tagging was removed within 24 hours, denying sought-after exposure.

In the past three years the contractors have cleaned more than 42,000 sites, and the graffiti team's removal budget has steadily decreased from $820,000 in its first year to $550,000 this year.

Shields has now moved into the more difficult areas of education and prevention of graffiti.

Helping police catch and convict offenders as deterrents is one of his weapons. In the past two months, he says, arrests have averaged about two a week.

He says there is no socio-economic profile for offenders - some of the most hardened offenders come from affluent backgrounds.

One recurring factor was the number of taggers who came from single parent families. Those causing the most damage were in the 14 to 20 age group, and had no supervision out of school.

"Usually they have got nothing better to do, they are not playing sports or anything else, and are at a bit of a loose end," Shields says.

"This whole thing gives them a real buzz, it appeals to them, almost like a source of entertainment."

Offenders range from casual taggers who make their marks to and from school each day out of boredom or under peer pressure, to organised gangs or crews, usually of three or four, who drive to targeted sites and wage tagging battles with rivals.

Taggers earn respect from their peers if their names are in particularly difficult to get places which are highly visible. One spoke proudly of braving the ledge of a six-storey building in New Lynn to write his name which was not painted over for months.

Levuka Hala, the co-ordinator of the Youth Alive trust which helps troubled youth from a Mt Roskill base, says competition between crews has also aggravated tagging.

Hala says 80 per cent of the referrals he gets from the Ministry of Education to his alternative schooling course, usually teenagers who are truants or have been expelled from school, are involved in tagging.

He checks daily for graffiti at the trust's base at the St John's Presbyterian Church, and when the students are out at work contracts. Even a tag drawn into the dust on the trust's van led to the student involved having to wash the vehicle.

But Hala says discipline alone will not change attitudes. He says taggers first have to acknowledge they are causing damage.

"The challenge for me is to really get them to the place where one day they say, 'I have been tagging, I want to stop, and I want to go and clean up the places I have been tagging'. It hasn't happened yet."

Three students who agreed to talk to the Weekend Herald say their tagging started at school, prompted by their older brothers or friends. Two in their mid-teens, who are still active, say it has become a habit.

One says he might stop once he becomes famous enough. Another says he doesn't know what will make him stop, it's just what his peer group does. He spoke about one benefit of fame.

"I went to this party and there was this mate of a famous tagger and all these girls were coming up to him all night," he says.

Both say they would be annoyed if their own home was tagged.

A third student says he has had enough of tagging.

"I found it stupid but in this youth generation it's really hard because to be cool with your mates you have got to walk the line with your mates."

He says that included a beating from a group of associates: "I just said, 'nah, I don't want it'.

"I don't need it man. You can get famous in other ways if you put your mind to it. I'm putting my head into rapping. I could get famous doing that."

He says his own home has been tagged by his former friends after he left the group.

Shields' message for those who are beyond being educated is that they will be caught.

His police contacts and knowledge of the law have helped him develop an array of graffiti-fighting tools. Shields' assistant, Michael Connell, has developed a computer package which records photographs and details of graffiti before they are painted out or repaired. Once police catch an offender the database can be used to match their tag name to other damaged sites.

Shields also has a network of volunteers who help identify and repair damaged sites using recycled paint provided by the council.

Connell this year began an education campaign in primary schools to get "the difference between art and graffiti is permission" message across before tagging becomes a habit or a peer forced activity.

Shields says few taggers have artistic talent.

"Some do but nowhere near as many as they would have you believe. I have put some to the test who claimed that but the results were very disappointing."

However, he has organised mural projects and is open to approaches from those who believe they have the talent to do "something with council permission, something artistic, something to be proud of, but conditional on no more tagging".

Levuka Hala at the Youth Alive trust agrees that artistic talent is rare.

"I don't think it's got anything to do with art, it's more about the culture, the gang thing, the rap thing.

"When they see other people's work they want to get theirs up as well."

Elliott "Askew" O'Donnell walks the fine line between illegal tagging and art.

The 24-year-old former tagger with convictions for property damage has formed his own graffiti art company, Disruptiv. He has worked for the council and corporate clients on murals and advertising assignments, and publishes a magazine highlighting graffiti from around New Zealand and abroad.

O'Donnell draws the line at etching. But he has an open mind on all other forms of graffiti, although he says it should avoid private property.

"If I saw a good tag on a tree, a church or an old lady's fence I would think that's pretty stink.

"But if I saw a good tag on a power box, bus stop or street sign, I don't know, it doesn't look as offensive as if it was on somebody's personal property."

O'Donnell sees the generic name tagging as a stepping stone to developing a more artistic style. He is less impressed with those who do not progress their work - "a true graffiti writer will always strive for the perfection of their own style". But he says part of the explanation is simple economics.

Spray paint can cost between $12 and $18, meaning elaborate works can be expensive.

O'Donnell says tags can carry credible artistic, political and even humorous messages. He cites a tagger who drew two smiling sausages on a pillar fronting a butchery, as an example of acceptable tagging.

To the head of the council's law and order committee, Noelene Raffills, there are no blurred lines.

"If there is permission, hip-hop artwork can be a great addition to the city. Without permission it's vandalism and it's something we will get convictions on."