Website helps tackle graffiti in Hull

Humberside Police is working with other local services to tackle graffiti via a new website – www.hullagainstgraffiti.co.uk. Working with Hull City Council, community wardens, OneHull, Crimestoppers and the probation service, the ‘Hull Against Graffiti’ website has been produced to give authorised personnel a platform on which to upload photographs of graffiti tags from across the city.

Members of the public can also use the site to confidentially report any information they have about people responsible for graffiti in the area.

A combination of this information and the photographs on one online platform will allow officers to link offences by the tags and track down offenders. The system will also be used by Hull City Council environmental crime team and Humberside probation officers to identify areas to be cleaned as part of the Community Payback scheme.

Inspector Bill Grieve, from East and Park neighbourhood policing team, said: “Graffiti is a city-wide problem that has a negative effect on communities and often makes the areas look run down, as well as costing taxpayers money to clean up. The Hull Against Graffiti website is a multi-agency approach to tackling the problem in a proactive and coordinated way. It will help police to link offenders to all their tags regardless of whether they are committed in the city centre or on the outskirts of the city, building stronger cases against those responsible which in turn will help increase prosecutions.

“I hope the public gets behind the police and council in tackling graffiti by visiting the user-friendly website and reporting any information about those committing graffiti offences confidentially.”

The site also has details about activity being undertaken to clean up graffiti across Hull, offenders who have been brought to justice, as well as details of the impact that graffiti has on victims.
The site was developed because graffiti is a city-wide issue where those responsible commit offences in various parts of the city and even travel from out of town to offend.