For NZ - punishment for Graffiti / vandalism?

Question

Hopefully someone can tell me WHY punish the person who sell the spray-paint to the teenager(s), and not the vandal himself or his parents ? This is something that i cannot understand, and hope someone from NZ can give me a contructive answer (no jokes). Thanks a lot !

Answer 1

because most of the vandals are too young to be charged so they can't do much about the criminals (only have a meeting with their parents with a social worker, etc).  Alot of kids are punished by being made to clean it off or paint over it anyway.  I can't understand why you're so upset about this when you don't even live here!  The shopkeepers don't seem to care about the law re them not being able to sell to people under a certain age.  probably because they've had the back of front of their shop spraypainted by kids at some point, so they agree with this law.

Answer 2

How is it punishing the people who sell the spray paint? It's helping the whole community. Graffiti cost New Zealand millions of dollars each year. Most people who do it are never caught and the cost of painting over it is very high, especially when as soon as it's painted over, the next day it'll be tagged again. They're not prohibiting the sale of spray cans, it's only to those under 18 (or 16, I'm not sure). It wont really help the situation because they have older brothers and sisters and friends to buy them for them.

But it's just like saying, why punish tobacco companies who sell cigarettes to teenagers?

It makes sense to me, maybe if you knew how much of your taxes were going towards the removal of this graffiti and then you may see why!

EDIT- That all costs a lot of money! Do you know how much it cost to hold one inmate in a prison cell for a night?! More than I'm paying for my hall of residence in the middle of Wellington! If these people are caught, they're made to do community service and remove their tagging. These people have terrible attitudes, if you saw the 20/20 or 60minutes documentary about taggers, you'd understand. Half the time their parents are druggies and couldn't care less if their children are out there tagging.

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