00:00 Castle Mane is renowned for its quaint cottages and tree-lined streets, but among the old
00:07 gold mining town's historic buildings, graffiti tags abound.
00:11 I can look at graffiti and appreciate art.
00:14 That tagging is not art.
00:16 Clem Purvis' business was recently targeted by taggers.
00:21 One of the store's security cameras captured vandals as they illegally got to work on their
00:26 chosen canvas, roller doors.
00:28 They've only been up there for 18 months and to come in on that morning and see them vandalised
00:34 was really disheartening and heartbreaking.
00:36 This tagging is just one example of what's becoming a rising problem in Mount Alexander
00:42 Shire.
00:43 In 2023, there have been 330 graffiti incidents per capita in the Shire.
00:49 The City of Melbourne had 222 graffiti incidents per capita.
00:56 Police have largely attributed the surge in graffiti crime to officers proactively reporting
01:01 incidents instead of waiting for victims to come forward.
01:05 We've put together a graffiti register of various tags so we can link the offending
01:10 to various people.
01:13 Residents who spoke to us told us they wouldn't go on camera for fear of becoming the target
01:17 of a reprisal graffiti attack.
01:19 Some of them have stopped cleaning the graffiti off of their property because when they do,
01:24 the tags return to do more damage.
01:26 In an effort to erase the issue, the Council has hired a graffiti officer at a cost of
01:31 $60,000 per year.
01:34 That person's role is to do a helicopter view across the organisation, the community groups
01:41 and the police.
01:42 But a long-time graffiti artist says there needs to be more public spaces for people
01:47 to legally express themselves.
01:49 You want your identity to be something cool, yeah?
01:51 You don't want it to just be some scribble on the wall.
01:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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