No matter how the Legislature resolves school finance, one lawmaker wants kids to know they should use books and paper, not school buildings and stop signs, to communicate their ideas. State Rep. Dwayne Bohac, a Houston Republican, filed House Bill 1440 to make offenders responsible for restoring defaced property to its original condition
Under this bill, graffiti offenders would make restitution by either personally erasing their markings or paying the cost incurred by the government, business, or individual in expunging the graffiti. HB 1440 also raises the Graffiti Eradication Fee paid upon conviction from five to fifty dollars. These new funds would be used to enhance graffiti cleanup and prevention programs, including the dissemination of educational materials in schools.
This legislation has two principal benefits. First, as Rep. Bohac states, graffiti “is not only a crime against the property owner who suffers the damage, but it is offensive to all who live in the surrounding community.” Moreover, it contributes to an atmosphere of lawlessness that social science evidence suggests leads to more serious crimes for which long prison sentences are often the punishment.
This is the “broken windows” theory advocated by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani when he successfully reformed that city’s tarnished reputation. A 1969 study by criminologist Phillip Zimbardo illustrates this theory. He left two identical unlocked cars in the street – one in a blighted neighborhood and one in a pristine neighborhood. He found the one in the rough area was stripped bare within a day while the other remained untouched for a week. However, that changed when Zimbardo put a hammer through the window of the untouched car, serving as the invitation for it to be destroyed within a day.
Using tough but smart measures that don’t involve incarceration to discourage minor crimes like graffiti, we can intervene early in the lives of youths who may be drifting toward a life of violent crime and send a message that lawlessness will not be tolerated.
In addition to combating a culture of lawlessness, this legislation embodies the powerful but often overlooked concept of restitution.
Is it too much to ask for graffiti offenders to either personally restore the property they damage or pay for it to be repaired? What is more likely to make a graffiti offender mend his ways than being required to personally scrub away the mess he has created? By paying restitution, offenders will better appreciate the harm they have inflicted on their victims, a lesson that will hopefully serve as a disincentive to committing future crimes.
Indeed, Texas should expand restitution policies to combat other crimes as well. For example, Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin) has introduced HB 172, which would require individuals convicted of filing a false statement or report with a state agency to reimburse that agency, and thus the taxpayers, for the cost of processing and investigating the report.
While many prisoners may lack the financial resources to pay restitution to victims, prison work programs could be expanded with restitution payments being deducted from prisoners’ earnings.
Finally, by giving judges the option of requiring personal cleanup of graffiti, HB 1440 demonstrates that restitution need not always consist of money. If we expand the role of victims in the sentencing process, courts can better determine how an offender can compensate the victim for the harm done.
By increasing funding for probation programs rather than building more prisons, the bipartisan House appropriations bill reflects a new consensus that, for budgetary reasons alone, incarceration must not be our only criminal justice tool. Yet, we cannot fall prey to those who insist that crime is society’s fault rather than an individual’s responsibility.
We must find new ways to make criminals restore the damage they have done to their victims. Forcing offenders to erase their graffiti from a stop sign would be a good start.
Marc A. Levin is director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based research institute.