Graffiti Ethics

The ethics society has on graffiti are quite simple. Its is illegal, unless on a legal wall, and it is vandalism and is frowned upon.

Below is the criminal damage act of 1971:

Graffiti and the law in England and Wales

Criminal Damage Act of 1971

gives us the following definition of criminal damage:

Section 1 (1) A person who without lawful excuse* destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence.

*In respect to graffiti we're talking here about ‘without permission’

If someone is caught applying graffiti without the permission of the owner of the canvas they can be arrested and charged under the Criminal Damage Act and if found guilty they can be fined or imprisoned or both.

Graffiti writers themselves have their own ethics about the things they write and places they write. For example they would never write on someones house or a church they have morals and respect.

The crew that I am going to be filing and interviewing very rarely write on illegal walls and for my documentary I will only be filming them filming on legal walls so I don't put myself and universities reputation at risk.

For the ethics in the documentary I will be ask the writers to talk more about their ethics as it is more of a lifestyles than anything else so this will be discussed further in the actual video.