Credit: Illustration: Megan Herbert To submit a letter to The Age , email [email protected] .
Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.
People love street art but they hate graffiti. Last week, James Scott-Howarth aka “Stan” of the graffiti crew 70k appeared in court facing 14 charges relating to offences committed over 20 years ago. (“ Inside Melbourne’s ’graffiti war ′′′, 23/5).
After fleeing arrest at the time, he had returned to Australia last year, voluntarily notifying police through his lawyer. Like many of his contemporaries involved in similar activities, he pleaded guilty to the charges and silently accepted the judgment of the court, a two-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community service. During the hearing Scott-Howarth was characterised by the magistrate and a police detective as cunning, deceitful and destructive, but they no longer described the person who faced the charges.
Like the offences, the language and rhetoric was rooted in a distant past. Opponents of graffiti and street art are quick to count the cost to the public and the community, but seem oblivious to the financial and social benefits that street art has brought to cities and communities all over the world. Graffiti culture has been almost entirely responsible for the presence of street art in the world.
The earliest practitioners of modern .
