By: Aaron Barnett-Kelly

Vandals strike once again, and their target is Windsor High School's beautiful campus and bathrooms. Vandalism: the willful or malicious destruction of public or private property; usually seen in the form of graffiti; the defacing of property with paint, markers and etchings. Graffiti is know as a type of visual communication, used by different people for different reasons. It is considered a form of antisocial behavior performed for attention or just for thrills; causing controversy with those who see graffiti as an expressive art form. Expressive art or not, it is still vandalism, and is school really a place that needs to be vandalized?

Most vandalism here at Windsor High School can be seen in the restrooms. A bathroom gets closed on average once or twice a week due to vandalism, even when the vandalism is just a "tag" with a sharpie. The most common writings on the wall are gang related, such as: XIV, 14, X3, SUR, etc. Gang graffiti is to show that this is their territory or to let other gangs know of their presence. Other "tags" seen in the bathroom are done by graffiti writers. These "tags" aren't gang related, but are the names a people who choose to represent themselves and uses it to "get up". Instead of claiming turf, it is more to show there presence, "getting up", being the main goal to graffiti writers, is to write their name wherever and whenever they can.

But why must these vandals use the schools restrooms as a canvas? The administration is frustrated, "[We] Can't seem to catch anyone", says Wil Geneth, the Campus Janitor. "I don't understand why they would want to deface this beautiful school". Vandalizing of the school, affects everyone: it frustrates the administration, it takes the money that could be used on books and other school funds to clean it up, steals time from janitors' other jobs around the school, and also is inconvenient for students who are trying to use a restroom that is   closed due to vandalism. Graffiti is a huge pain to buff away. Spray paint and permanent markers take special chemicals to get off of surfaces; even still this is not enough. Brick planter boxes around the school need to be power washed to get rid of the graffiti. Sometimes the best option is to just paint over it, although paint is costly and often is not the same color of the original surface.

Vandalism will always be a part of modern day society, but is there any way to stop it? Not likely but, Windsor High is taking an effort to catch the culprits. Catching a vandal is no easy task, the vandals are rarely caught red handed, taking just seconds to commit the crime. Documentation of graffiti can help make pinning a specific "tag" to a person a lot easier. Police, city workers, and even the criminals take pictures of graffiti. The vandals use their photos as proof of their crime and are know for posting them online for the world to see; while police and city workers take the photos as proof of the crime as well, but to use it against them. Once they have caught a vandal and know his "tag" they use their collection of photographs to charge that person with everything he has done. The school shuts down the bathrooms that have been vandalized in order to take a photograph. There are 6 suspects, and students can easily be caught off guard because the school does pay attention to doodles on paper, "tags" on backpacks, and other graffiti related sketches on binders.

Attention and thrill seekers alike will still vandalize the school, but they should be warned that the school does see this as a problem and they are going to do something about it. A tag in the bathroom is not worth a criminal record and probation; graffiti is a serious crime, and you won't just get away with a slap on the wrist.