LOS ANGELES, March 5 (UPI) -- Police in Southern California are using new technologies to catch graffiti vandals in the act and to find the culprits bragging about their crimes afterward.
Police are using systems that include global positioning technology, digital photography and mass data storage to track vandals and build stronger evidence against suspects, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday.
Graffiti Tracker Inc., which has contracts with 13 cities in Southern California, uses global positioning devices hooked up to cameras to allow police to photograph "taggings" and allow a Graffiti Tracker analyst to review and categorize the markings by gangs or individual taggers and put the information in an online database for police to use.
"The technology five years ago wasn't what it is today," said Tim Kephart, founder of Graffiti Tracker Inc.
Kephart told the Times quickly painting over graffiti is a bad strategy for combating the problem.
"The only result it has (is) if you get rid of graffiti right away, is you get rid of graffiti right away," Kephart said. "The tagger will say, 'What's the worry, nobody's tracking it, there's no intelligence and no one's coming after me.' It makes them bolder."
