In the war against graffiti, three words mark the city's most notorious vandal:
No More Prisons
One of the graffitists responsible for the campaign tells Columbus Alive that the city's clean-up efforts won't stop them from spreading their message
by Jamie Pietras
There's a battle--no, make that a war--being waged in the streets of Columbus. It's pitting city officials and members of the business community against covert rebels armed with spray paint who speak their minds through hit-and-run vandalism.
The graffiti splattered across the cityscape adds to blight, city officials say, and leads to a sense of uneasiness in the community.
So incensed is the city with graffiti that it's upping the ante, pledging hundreds of thousands of dollars in city resources and assembling a team of law enforcement officials, an elected city councilmember and a no-nonsense judge who once sentenced a person to three days in jail for writing on a parking meter with permanent marker.
Standing unfazed is a person who, along with at least six others, is responsible for vandalizing hundreds of sites with the phrase "No More Prisons." The tagging team's actions have sparked the interest of TV news crews and local papers. Their vandalism, the graffitist known as "No More Prisons" says, draws more attention to their cause than legitimate forms of protest ever could.
In the recently approved city budget, $235,000 was allocated to help fight graffiti. By spring, the city will have its own graffiti-removal truck and two full-time employees to remove graffiti as soon as it appears.
Columbus City Council's 2000 budget included more than $300,000 earmarked for graffiti removal. A little more than $100,000 was paid to Contract Sweepers, an outside company that cleaned about 52 sites for the city last year, according to Assistant Director of Public Service Mary Webster. The remaining money, intended to purchase a city-owned truck and hire employees to staff it, was instead used to pay off a city deficit, Webster said.
The 2000 anti-graffiti budget was a marked increase over 1999's budget--three times as much, according to Lelia Cady, aide to council member Maryellen O'Shaughnessy.
One might say Cady has become the city's "graffiti czar," though she wouldn't quite call the initiative undertaken by her boss O'Shaughnessy a war on graffiti. "I don't like that word," Cady said.
Cady stays in touch regularly with the NoGraf network, a tightly organized collective of anti-graffiti forces. Joining NoGraf was no easy task. The collaborative led by law enforcement officers takes graffiti seriously--very seriously.
NoGraf checked out Cady's credentials to make sure she wasn't a vandalist infiltrator. The group's web site even features two separate areas: one for the general public and a secure "members-only" area.
Graffiti artists write into the web site to mock and heckle the group. "Just leave writers alone and go back to milking your cows you damn red necks," wrote one unnamed person on November 23, 2000.
"Your little anti-graffiti campaign is only making graffiti writers more aware of your efforts and now causing them to create and reform new ways to do graffiti and express themselves without an uptight jackass tryin to screw it up!" wrote "menaceone," a self-proclaimed "activist, tagger and vandal."
In 2000, 44 people were charged with "graffitism," according to Franklin County Municipal Court records. Graffitism is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 150 days in jail, a $1,000 fine and 200 hours of community service. That's on top of the cost of restitution, or cleaning up all of the damaged property.
The number of crimes is rising, said Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr., the Franklin County Environmental Court judge who hears all graffiti cases.
"We've seen an increase," confirmed Webster. "I think that as more and more graffiti comes up, it probably prompts other people to do it as well." According to Webster's best estimates--provided to her by Contract Sweepers Manager Mark Dusseau--about half a dozen people are responsible for most of the graffiti in Columbus.
Civil Disobedience
Among the most visible of the sprayed-on messages is a simple phrase that's been plastered on hundreds of corporate buildings, freeway walls, bridges and other city properties.
It's only three words: No More Prisons.
After Columbus Alive contacted a source within the local activist community in search of "No More Prisons," a person claiming to be a member of the local graffiti initiative contacted Alive and agreed to a face-to-face interview, under the condition that the vandal's name not be used.
"No More Prisons" said that a group of about seven people are responsible for the vandalism. Other people who are unknown to the core "No More Prisons" group have jumped on the bandwagon, painting the slogan across the city. "I'm not offended by that, where a tagger would be," the vandal said of the copycat graffiti.
The vandal's goal is to "get the message out there, to get people thinking and talking about it," the person said. The message to be extrapolated (and you'd have to do a lot of extrapolating--"No More Prisons" is all the graffitists write) is that the prison-industrial complex values profit over people. America has more than two million people locked up in jail. More than half of those inmates are non-violent drug offenders.
Indeed, talking to "No More Prisons" reveals an articulate and knowledgeable opponent of America's incarceration policies, and the person's crime could be considered a form of civil disobedience, a way of spreading a political message.
The "No More Prisons" graffitist claims the campaign's been a success so far. "I've heard complete strangers talking about it in coffee shops and in bars," the vandal said. Recently, the person spray-painted these untypically verbose sentiments on a local BP gas station wall: "Never doubt a small group of people can change the world."
City officials consider the person a vandal and criminal.
Cady, an advocate for the arts and a rather Libertarian-minded political insider, doesn't see the merit of scribbling simple messages on walls. First of all, she points out, graffiti is vandalism--period.
"I find it immature and shallow to write `No More Prisons' on an expensive piece of infrastructure owned by all of us and think somehow you're going to make a statement on the prison-industrial complex," she said.
The public service department's Mary Webster also doesn't agree with the logic of defacing property as a form of activism. "Instead of writing `No More Prisons,' do something about it," she said.
But this, the "No More Prisons" graffitist said, is precisely what activists do, and continue to do, with little or no coverage from the local media.
Some protests have drawn the participation of close to 300 people, with no reporters there to cover them, the vandal said. But toss up a little spray paint, and TV channels, alternative weeklies, even the Columbus Dispatch begin to pay attention. A local radio station made the faceless "No More Prisons" vandal its "artist of the week."
The phrase itself was popularized by Billy "Upski" Wimsatt, a white Jewish graffiti artist from Chicago whose 1999 book No More Prisons became a widely regarded manifesto for grassroots activism and self-education. Raptivism Records released the No More Prisons compilation the same year, featuring hip-hop artists like Dead Prez, The Last Poets and scholar Cornell West.
On August 23, 1999, unknown graffiti writers issued a press release announcing the start of a national "No More Prisons" campaign, though they specified they were going to paint on sidewalks, not buildings.
"That is basically the spirit of what we're doing," the local "No More Prisons" vandal said of the movement spurred by Upski. The local group has talked to graffiti crews in other cities, the graffitist said, many of whom got their start in Columbus. Detroit and Chicago still have strong "No More Prisons" graffiti campaigns. "We made it pick up," the graffitist said.
Not having talked to Upski directly, Columbus' "No More Prisons" still believes Upski would likely approve of what the vandal's doing. "I think it would actually make his day."
Columbus Alive tried to contact Upski via e-mail, but didn't hear back by press time.
The War on Grime
While a look at Columbus graffiti shows that nothing is sacred--homes, businesses, public property--the "No More Prisons" source and fellow graffitist "Coup" said they abide by strict rules when it comes to "writing," the term graffitists prefer to vandalism.
Coup, who contacted Columbus Alive anonymously by telephone, abides by the rules laid forth in the 1999 graffiti writers' constitution The Art of Getting Over by Stephen Powers.
"The rules internationally are pretty much to stay off churches, houses and personal property," Coup said. Taggers that spray campus-area homes are "just fuckers" in Coup's eyes. "If somebody hit my house, it would be over."
For "No More Prisons," city and corporate property--but not homes--are all ripe for the defacing. The vandal, whose first graffiti was painted on the police station in Upper Arlington, said the tagging team has also hit specific convenience stores and gas stations that don't hire ex-cons.
Coup, who claims to do graffiti for political reasons, tries to hit abandoned properties that are near big businesses. Coup will hit the businesses too, though. Neither Coup nor "No More Prisons" had any remorse for hitting corporate properties. "To me, that really doesn't come into effect, because who owns them?" Coup asked.
Coup has even fewer reservations about defacing city or government property. The graffitist pays taxes just like everyone else, Coup reasoned. Coup particularly likes the front and back of highway signs. "However you can get up there, you get up there."
The sad irony of graffiti, say city officials, is that it leads to the decline of neighborhoods, be it through lower property values or increased crime rates. The hardest hit are the inner-city neighborhoods whose residents political graffitists would seemingly want to embrace.
"It destroys neighborhoods," said environmental court judge Pfeiffer. "Some people say it's a property offense. It's far more than that."
"No More Prisons" thinks the vandalism is doing the community nothing but good. "They always say it causes crime or brings down the community. That's all just rhetoric." Rather, the vandal believes to be living a tradition embraced by everyone from Henry David Thoreau to Allen Ginsberg.
"The city will let people put up billboards and signs and posters if it's part of that corporate world," the graffitist continued. "If we do it, it's a crime. If they do it, it's just corporate advertising."
In a symbolic sense, "No More Prisons" sees the city's war on graffiti as a bittersweet consequence of the vandal's actions. "Every dollar they spend taking that off the wall is a dollar they're not spending on the prison system," the vandal said, even though prisons are funded through state or federal dollars and not city money.
The city hopes that by taking down graffiti within a day or two of its inception, people like Coup and "No More Prisons" will be deterred. "The studies seem to show that what happens is, somebody graffitis a place and then they want to come back later and show their friends what they've done. And if they come back and it's already been cleaned off, that's sort of demoralizing," Mary Webster said.
Clean-up is costly to taxpayers--more than $1,000 a site on average, Webster said. "We've had sites that have been $15,000."
"It makes me sick how much this is costing," Lelia Cady added.
But if what goes up must come down by the city, there's no assurance it won't go up again.
The "No More Prisons" source is not scared of city efforts, which the vandal had heard about just a few days before speaking with Columbus Alive. "My first impression was there would be a lot of clean walls to work on."The vandal has been chased by the cops, and been seen by police officers who just drove away. One time an officer had his car and headlights pointed directly at the graffitist. "Either he didn't want to do the paperwork of picking me up or he agreed with me."
What if "No More Prisons" gets caught? "I got no money," said the source. "It's not going to give them their money back. The walls are still going to be there when I get out."
Coup has been caught several times. "You never know how long your luck will run," the graffitist said. "I know the consequences of what can happen."
While Pfeiffer judges graffiti charges on a "case by case" basis, it isn't unusual for a first-timer to get 10 days in jail. "Sometimes I need to get people's attention to say they won't do it again," the judge said. "I think anybody going to jail is tough."
One of the most significant portions of Columbus' current eradication effort is restitution. A city refuse collection official collects photographs of graffiti so when a person is arrested, the vandal's work can be checked against the catalogue. A Columbus Division of Police handwriting analyst can even be called in to make connections. When it's all said and done, a person arrested for one count of graffitism could end up paying for an entire career's worth of vandalism.
Removing all the graffiti in the city would be a next-to-impossible task. So, the city prioritizes its efforts. "Offensive language or thought," such as swear words and hate graffiti, is among the first to go, Webster said. Highly visible sites, and those requested by members of Columbus City Council, are also high on the priority list. When Webster last checked, there were 145 sites on the city's list to be cleaned. The city has not set a goal of how many sites it wants to get through this year, she said.
Currently, a city committee is looking at other ways to combat the "war on grime," as Webster has coined it. They're looking at developing a hotline for residents to call when they see graffiti, Webster said. The city is also considering integrating county probation programs to include graffiti clean-up.
The measures aren't quite as radical as what's been done in other cities. Chicago, for example, outlawed spray paint within city limits, Cady said.
Coup scoffs at the city's efforts, particularly those of law enforcement. "It just kind of cracks me up personally because there's really only three people in Columbus doing this stuff," the vandal said. "We don't really have anything going on here... I can think of bigger and better crimes."
Coup wonders why the city doesn't adopt a program offering free walls for graffiti. "It's a shame the city doesn't get into more of the legal painting--murals and stuff," Coup said. "The city could actually do something really, really positive."
"I've come to the conclusion they want to be noticed," said Pfeiffer, who's heard quite a few cases in his 10-year tenure as judge. "I do not consider it an artistic expression."
Cady said even if the city did offer free space, there would inevitably be vandals looking for walls to deface.
As for "No More Prisons," public property will remain the soapbox from which the vandal and others speak. "No matter what they say, there is power in it," the graffitist said. "I've got more stuff up than BP."