A hi-tech tool that tracks graffiti and compares it with others vandalism helps prosecutors net longer jail time and higher restitution amounts.
The program called Graffiti Tracker was pioneered in Escondido and now, San Diego County leaders are hoping it will work in other areas of the region as well.
The Escondido Police Department's gang unit was the first to start using it more than four years ago. The Oceanside Police department uses it and in 2009, the San Diego County Sheriff's department began using it.
Graffiti Tracker is a web-based system that documents graffiti.
Here's how it works: City workers who clean up graffiti take a picture of it first, using a special GPS camera. The image of that graffiti is then uploaded to the server. Analysts then document the graffiti and determine which ones are done by the same vandal.
According to one county employee, the GPS cameras cost $1300 each and the public works crews have access to 34 of the cameras in the program.
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"There's going to be nowhere in the county for graffiti vandals to hide," said San Diego Supervisor Greg Cox in a news release. "We're going to go after them and make them pay for the damages they've caused."
“Every city in the county is now onboard,” San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said. “We’re all in this together.”
Prosecutors used to go after taggers one charge at a time.
“Now we can file up to 50 counts and when we do that, we’ll get more restitution and more time in custody,” said Dumanis.
She cited cases like one in Imperial Beach case that netted $87,000 in restitution and another in Vista that in $37,000 in restitution and a year in custody.
