He believes graffiti can beautify walls.
Four of his friends who declined to be identified agreed that graffiti should not be linked to juvenile delinquency.
One of them admitted that he usually draw “Chamolinian” expressions such as the word “Taotao” in Garapan.
He said he did not do it to deface the wall or pavement but because “it feels good and it looks okay.”
A seventeen-year-old student from Garapan said he and his friends sometimes write on the walls of abandoned buildings.
“It’s abandoned and we expected that nobody would care if we drew things on the building’s wall,” he said.
If they are not allowed to draw things on abandoned walls and buildings, then “there should be a graffiti place for us — at the skate park or [somewhere] near the beach,” he added.
Other teenagers interviewed by this reporter said graffiti allows them to “release stress and express themselves.”
“Teens just like to draw and write,” Castro said. “There should be a way for them to do it right and not mess up the whole island.”
A problem
Division of Environmental Quality’s Joe Kaipat said graffiti can be considered an art form, but “it is unlawful to deface or destroy government and private properties.”
He added, “If they are on private property they probably are trespassing and people will see that as a work of a delinquent individual.”
He said most of the graffiti cleaned up by DEQ and Beautify CNMI are found on bus stops, picnic pavilions, school walls and other government or private properties.
The government should perhaps build walls on which teenagers can draw graffiti legally, he added.
