Imagine that your parents just purchased their new home. All of their hard work and dedication has finally paid off buy having a place of their own. You can see the joy and excitement on your parents faces when there moving into their new house. Finally, settling into the new house brings comfort and relaxation to the whole family, with a surprising event awaiting the family the next day. Waking up the next day, you witness that your parents new house was vandalized. "South Side Locos", "X4", and "Norte", is the graffiti you view on the house walls and on the fence. This incident occurred to my family and I, when we moved into are new house in 1996.
Graffiti is defined by the Webster's deictionary as "an inscription, slogan, drawing, scratched, scribbled, or drawn, often crudely on the wall or other public surface." Tagging as we know today started in New York City in the 1970's. It began by a delivery boy name Demitrius, who worked as a messenger in Brooklyn, New York. Demetrius would write "Taki183" on the street corners in Brooklyn while making his deliveries. The word "Taki", was Demitrius nickname, and "183" represented 183rd street, where he lived. Tagging was spread to the west coast in 1988, where it has flourished. California has more tagging now than any other state. There are reported 1,600 tagging crews in San Diego adn Los Angeles counties alone.
The problems with graffiti and the vandals producing this crime are being taking care of with Tagger Trap. Tagger Trap, a graffiti eradiction system being tested in several California cities, uses global positioning system technology, cell phones and sensors that recognizes the ultrasonic pitch of spray cans to alert police when vandals begin their work. The unique, ultrasonic tone emitted by aerosol paint cans trips the sensors, which signals a transmitter linked to a police cell phone or radio. The global positioning system pinpoints the location of the transmitter.
