Parishes received letters last week asking officials to help police by providing lists of local hot spots for the crime.
St Martin’s senior constable Dave Beausire said the news of the crackdown, though welcome, was unexpected.
‘Of course, we don’t want any issues like graffiti, littering or fly-tipping,’ said Mr Beausire. ‘But at this point in time, graffiti doesn’t seem to a particularly big problem in our parish.
‘We had one spate of it a few months ago. But we were fairly sure it was just one person and we handed a name and photo to police. We’ve had nothing since.’
A similar sense of surprise was felt in the Vale, the first parish approached by community officers to put together a list of problem areas.
‘We haven’t had any graffiti complaints recently that I know of,’ said junior constable Richard Leale.
In St Peter Port too, parish officials said that there were some issues with graffiti but it was not a particular point of concern at this time.
‘We do have cases at fairly regular intervals, but overall it’s infrequent and I wouldn’t suggest it’s an increasing problem,’ said junior constable Ken Acott.
Police said they were not surprised at the initial reaction but said they were responding to public concerns and using the issue to develop stronger community links.
‘We know it’s not a huge issue right now, but it is an emerging issue,’ said Sergeant Robbie Manns.
‘It’s matter that’s been raised to us more and more by the public themselves during our monthly community drop-in sessions,’ added Constable Alex Moore, a member of the Neighbourhood Police Team.
Beyond being visually unpleasant and a form of criminal damage, the police’s worries around graffiti extended to its capacity to function as a ‘broken window crime’ – an open sign they feared would appear to invite more serious offences in future.
So they sought to adopt a collaborative ‘multi-agency’ approach that looks to incorporate bodies like the parishes into their efforts to help document cases, identify the people behind them and co-coordinate initiatives to raise awareness of the problem, and better understand why the offence is being committed.
‘It’s about education, outreach and prevention, and working together to nip this in the bud quickly before it develops into an issue,’ added Sergeant Manns.
You need to be logged in to comment.