08-31-2025, 05:27 AM
Here are some photos of non-political student graffiti, although most of it has undergone much fading. This site--College Drive--is a little out of town and located just below the university (and in close proximity--500m or so--to much student accommodation from two sides). I taught at this university for several years and some students informed me that occasionally students were known to engage in the crime of graffiti at this site, particularly as graduation approached.
During the four years I worked at this university, I was not aware of any complaints about this graffiti and it appeared to be something that university officials and municipal authorities ignored--kids will be kids... Although, then again, I did not delve into the longer history of this graffiti and it is possible there were more official complaints lodged about it in the past or even after I'd left.
There is an interesting article of this type of graffiti:
Schaefer, D. (2004). Perceptual biases, graffiti and fraternity crime: Points of deflection that distort social justice. Critical Criminology, 12(2), 179-193.
The abstract for this article is:
"Although the official, law-enforcement policy in Bloomington, Indiana, categorized graffiti as vandalism, prominently displayed graffiti produced by Indiana University's student organizations escaped criminalization. This article documents the differential, criminal justice treatment of graffiti vandalism based on the group producing it thereby reaffirming the existence of a class-based system of justice. This article also uncovers a hidden bias inherent in Chambliss' “The Saints and the Roughnecks” by arguing that university students, whose graffiti do not receive negative sanctioning, represent Saints at the college level who exhibit criminal behavior. University-level lessons about how the crimes of the privileged go unprosecuted or become transformed into civil rather than criminal events could very well pave the way for further crimes after graduation rather than the “Saintly” adulthood implied by Chambliss. More research into the alternate system of justice used with regard to university students could shed light on both the problems and possibilities encountered when implementing alternate systems of social justice."
We thank and credit Professor Dean Hay for taking these photos.
During the four years I worked at this university, I was not aware of any complaints about this graffiti and it appeared to be something that university officials and municipal authorities ignored--kids will be kids... Although, then again, I did not delve into the longer history of this graffiti and it is possible there were more official complaints lodged about it in the past or even after I'd left.
There is an interesting article of this type of graffiti:
Schaefer, D. (2004). Perceptual biases, graffiti and fraternity crime: Points of deflection that distort social justice. Critical Criminology, 12(2), 179-193.
The abstract for this article is:
"Although the official, law-enforcement policy in Bloomington, Indiana, categorized graffiti as vandalism, prominently displayed graffiti produced by Indiana University's student organizations escaped criminalization. This article documents the differential, criminal justice treatment of graffiti vandalism based on the group producing it thereby reaffirming the existence of a class-based system of justice. This article also uncovers a hidden bias inherent in Chambliss' “The Saints and the Roughnecks” by arguing that university students, whose graffiti do not receive negative sanctioning, represent Saints at the college level who exhibit criminal behavior. University-level lessons about how the crimes of the privileged go unprosecuted or become transformed into civil rather than criminal events could very well pave the way for further crimes after graduation rather than the “Saintly” adulthood implied by Chambliss. More research into the alternate system of justice used with regard to university students could shed light on both the problems and possibilities encountered when implementing alternate systems of social justice."
We thank and credit Professor Dean Hay for taking these photos.
