New graffiti law can send teens to prison

Graffiti has cost the Australian city of Sydney more than $100 million. Now police there are trying to stop graffiti with new laws and teenage arrests. The city is in the state of New South Wales, which has just introduced a law that allows judges to make offenders clean up their graffiti. And a new law in the Sydney suburb of Manly allows judges to send offenders to prison for six months or make them pay AUS$1,100. People there aren’t even allowed to own spray cans “unless they can prove they are to be used for education, employment or legal art.”

Meanwhile, the Sydney police arrested three teens from a graffiti gang earlier this month for spraying graffiti on railway stations and trains. Senior Sergeant Mick Timms told reporters, “A lot of people will do anything to see trains and railway property damaged. It's a huge cost to the community." The police are still looking for other members of the graffiti gang.