Tag – You’re It!

A new system is using cameras and GPS technology to help catch graffiti artists.   Graffiti Tracker, properly called Graffiti Analysis/IntelligenceTracking System (GAITS), was created by crime analyst and graduate student Timothy Kephart, uses GPS cameras to record the location and art. It’s then compared to computer databases to trackand catch the artists. The database allows individual artists or taggers, when caught, to be charged with multiple vandalism counts.   It might seem like crushing a nut with a sledgehammer, butgraffiti cleanup is a major problem that costs about $10 billion a year. Since it’s believed that much graffiti is gang-related, the new system can help track gangs.   The hi-tech graffitisolution has quickly found favour, with more than 20 cities across three states signing up for the system, and Kephart expects that number to double in the next year. He most decidedly doesn’tview graffiti as street art.   “Just because you have the talent and the ability to make it look really awesome, doesn’t mean it’s legal when you do it on someone else’s property withouttheir permission,” he observed. His company’s web site states that graffiti is “a serious crime that requires the most intensive analysis and research, from beginning to end.”