Sociology Commons^™

Hanging With The Hoodies: Towards An Understanding Of The Territorial Tagging Practices Of Prolific Graffiti Writers Seeking An Adolescent Non-Conforming Social Identity, Myra Taylor

Myra F Taylor

Tagging, the unsolicited rendition of a graffiti writer’s street name on someone else’s property, is typically committed by adolescents aged 12-17 years seeking a deviant non-conforming social identity. While graffiti involvement places prolific writers on a trajectory towards more serious criminal offending, little is known about their tagging practices. To address this knowledge shortfall, an examination was conducted of 1,462 graffiti report forms completed by removalists prior to removing graffiti written in an inner city area of Perth, Western Australia over a three month period. Frequency distribution analysis revealed that while 759 individuals collectively wrote 2,729 tags, just 16 prolific …