UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHEASTERN PHILIPPINES Bo. Obrero St. , Davao City 2008-2009 Thesis Statement: “Vandalism is an act which causes defacement in the surroundings and a crass erection of an eyesore. ” In Partial Fulfillment of The Activity in English 2 Writing in Discipline Submitted to: Fe Aileen S. Paul Submitted by: Esrely Evangelista Laianne Formentera Joel Daniel Dedoroy Kurtney Cenal Lyka Mae Coronas TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I Introduction……………………………………………………………… Background of the Study……………………………………………… Problem Statement……………………………………………………… Scope and Limitation……………………………………………………
Theoretical/Conceptual Framework………………………………… Definition…………………………………………………………………… Chapter II Review of Related Literature………………………………………… Chapter III Methodology……………………………………………………………… Research Instrument…………………………………………………… Research Locals…………………………………………………………… Respondents……………………………………………………………… Chapter IV Presentation of Data……………………………………………………… Interpretation and Analysis…………………………………………… Chapter V Summary of Findings……………………………………………………… Conclusion and Recommendation……………………………………… Reference………………………………………………………………………………. Appendices……………………………………………………………………………..
INTRODUCTION Vandalism is a criminal act against property — but when it’s your property being damaged, it affects on a personal level. You feel violated, and wonder how such a thing could have happened to you. While vandalism hurts — and more than just in the pocketbook — there are ways that you can preventing vandalism. Like other crimes against property and people, the first step to preventing vandalism is understanding the crime. Vandalism the willful destruction or defacing of property—is a crime. It’s expensive to repair. It makes our communities unattractive and unsafe.
Vandalism has a tendency to decline during winter months when individuals spend less time outside and on Saturdays and Sundays when public buildings and open spaces are under greater scrutiny. Vandalism occurs most often at night, when fewer people are around and property isn’t under as much scrutiny. Like most crime, a vandal’s greatest threats are the Three Natural Enemies of Crime: Noise, Time, Visibility If a criminal has a good chance of being seen, has a high chance of being heard while committing the act, or has little time to vandalize property and get away, there is less chance that vandalism will take place.
Vandalism happens everywhere, but most often occurs where the vandal has little chance of being seen. Most often, it occurs: where building design and lighting offers concealment and anonymity in areas frequented by young people such as schools, parks, shopping plazas and public buildings in unoccupied buildings, open spaces or parked vehicles where minimum surveillance is given to property. Background of the Study Vandalism is one of the common crime mostly can be seen on school campuses. We also define vandalism as destruction of ones properties.
Historically, vandalism has been justified by painter Gustave Courbet as destruction of monuments symbolizing “war and conquest”. Therefore, it is often done as an expression of contempt, creativity, or both. Vandalism is only a meaningful concept in a culture that recognizes history and archaeology. Like other similar terms (Barbarian/barbary, and Philistine), the term Vandal was originally an ethnic slur referring to the Vandals, who under Geiseric sacked Rome in 455. The Vandals, like the Philistines, no longer exist as an identifiable ethnic group.
The term in its modern acceptance was coined in January 1794 during the French Revolution, by Henri Gregoire, constitutional bishop of Blois, in his report directed to the Republican Convention, where he used word Vandalisme to describe some aspects of the behaviour of the republican army. In 455 A. D. , Vandals, an ancient tribe of people from Northern Europe, invaded Rome. The invasion was characterized by a senseless destruction of property, particularly the plundering of works of art.
The destruction was so great that the name “vandal” came to be associated with any deliberate or reckless destruction, abuse, or misuse of property. Studies indicate that from ten to twenty percent of all rural households are annually victimized by vandalism. Also, research shows that vandalism is increasing in contemporary rural society. Statement of the Problem “Graffiti locations are often characterized by the absence of anyone with direct responsibility for the area. This includes public areas, schools, vacant buildings, and buildings with absentee landlords.
Offenders also target locations with poor lighting and little oversight by police or security personnel. ”1 This statement can be easily applied to the larger aspect of graffiti, which is vandalism. Disorder (often manifesting as criminal mischief or “vandalism”) has been shown as a direct link to a diminished sense of safety as well as the commission of more serious crimes. Disorder is symptomatic of a number of underlying social issues that result in the breakdown of informal and formal social controls. For that reason, it is difficult to deal with disorder without a “big picture” perspective.
In a campus in which graffiti or vandalism exist, it became a big problem of the faculty and the higher officers of the campus. They did some remedy regarding the existence of the vandalism in which being implemented but it was still not followed. Their were still who were violating rules and keep on vandalizing everywhere especially at the walls of the comfort room and also in the arm chairs. Usually this happens in a clean area in which they do something to make it dump. It’s very hard to understand why people would vandalize. It’s senseless disrespect. 1]As for graffiti, it was a big difference between artistic graffiti and a lot of the tagging out there. A lot of tagging was seems to fit the bill of vandalism in that it’s disrespectful, rude, and seems to have been put up there for the sheer purpose of doing something that not supposed to do, or being rude. Most vandalism including graffiti, occurs in the evenings and on the weekends according to the interviewed staffs. So set-up prevention techniques accordingly. Schedule custodial crew at night and provide incentives for reporting vandalism and any information to catch suspects. In terms of graffiti, damages are usually visible to the public and the surfaces that are defaced areoften hard to clean. Graffiti has been explained as adolescent rites of passage that is fairly innocent; anger toward society; ideologically based, usually reflecting hate and bias; gang related marking territory and making threats; tagging as self expression and a means to attain notoriety; or a gateway offense to more serious crimes. “2 For the most part, graffiti walls remain intact. They are seen as legitimate art by other “graffiti artists,” so they are left alone.
Graffiti walls have the most favorable impact to the community if they are done in an area that is chronically defaced. Overall, it appears that eliminating the chronic graffiti spot does not displace it to other areas of the city. Discussion Questions 1. Is the campus council interested in the campus enhancing their effort to combat vandalism, and if so, what should be the focus? 2. Should prevention approaches include organized, sanctioned graffiti walls and additional job opportunities for youth? 3. Should public facilities be hardened or closed to the public at earlier hours.
Scope and Limitation Our research paper compile with the researchers started last January 15, up to February 27, 2008. 10% of the students in College of Arts and Institute of Computing in University of Southeastern Philippines (UseP) are the respondents of this research. This research is all about Vandalism is an act which causes defacement in the surrounding and a crass erection of an eyesore. It is stated here in the research paper about the reaction of the students about vandalism and how it affects to each individual and to the environment.
Conceptual Framework Words have power. You can see it in the Vandalism that for most of its life was defacement and destruction. Vandalism was done to express emotion & beliefs. Different groups use distinct forms of vandalism (or discourses), so that they can espouse and emphasize different values, creating and reproducing a subculture. Since one cannot look directly into an individual’s mind to see the power in vandalism and emotions, a good alternative is to look at their actions. A subculture’s history frames its discourse, and its living history (a. k. a. ctions) is a reflection of the meaning it finds in the discourse: its interpretation. It is neither discourse alone, or action alone that best explains what vandalizing is. Discourse fails by its inability to base itself and its acceptance of a multiplicity of “truths. ” Simply put, it is easy to say one thing and mean or do another. For instance, vandals may claim that they are following the “vandals ethic,” while they use their skills to destruct or dafaces someones property. Action by itself will also fail, as without a related discourse one cannot know its meaning.
For example if you saw a defaced wall where the original was replaced with vandals, it would seem like a senseless act of vandalism. The last part of this paper is based on several political assumptions that I do not have the space to address here. I assume that popular resistance to the rule of the elite is good and necessary for reducing inequality, achieving a just global society, and ultimately ensuring the survival of the planet. Thus the importance in my arguments is not just to understand vanbalizing, but to understand it through the perspective of its potential use for popular resistance.
Definition of Terms Vandalism . is the behavior attributed to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable. Such action includes criminal damage, defacement, graffiti and crass erection of an eyesore. Graffiti . is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is sometimes regarded as a form of art and other times regarded as unsightly damage or unwanted. Scrutiny . is a careful examination or inquiry (often implying the search for a likely mistake or failure). Anonymity . eaning “without a name” or “namelessness”. In colloquial use, the term typically refers to a person, and often means that the personal identity, or personally identifiable information of that person is not known. Defacement . in common usage, to deface something refers to marking or removing the part of an object (especially images, be they on the page, in illustrative art or as a sculpture) designed to hold the viewers’ attention. Contempt . is an intense feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless—it is similar to scorn. Contempt is also defined as the state of being despised r dishonored; disgrace, and an open disrespect or willful disobedience of the authority of a court of law or legislative body. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Vandalism has its main history despite of the fact that it has been defined to us and bare in our minds that it is an act in which graffiti involves and at the same time issues has been reported because of the act of destruction of once property. The word Vandalism was more on defined globally, there has been a group of kids in Sayville that provided the nearest thing to justice that Sayville ever saw. These kids were called “The Vandals. This group can be traced back from long before WW2 to the present day. According to Dr. Stanley Paulsen, a psychologist/criminalologist who studies the root causes of vandalism among children, the Vandals were a natural reaction to the policies of the school district, parents and community leaders. Dr. Paulsen said, “The Vandals were brave kids that filled the vacuum created by inept local policies. For many, the Vandals were a godsend. ” Even in some countries Vandalism is most likely cruel even if there are many sign boards all over the corners but still most of the people cannot control themselves in doing as act such like that.
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable. Such action includes criminal damage, defacement, graffiti and crass erection of an eyesore. Private citizens commit vandalism when they willfully damage or deface the property of others or the commons. Some vandalism qualifies as culture jamming or sniggling – it is artistic in nature as well as being carried out illegally or without the property owner’s permission.
Examples include at least some graffiti art, billboard liberation and possibly crop circles. Criminal vandalism has many forms, graffiti on public property is common in many inner cities as part of a gang culture, however other more devastating forms such as those involved with public unrest, such as rioting, involve the willful destruction of public and private property, Vandalism per se is often considered one of the least serious common crimes, but it can become quite serious and distressing when committed extensively, violently or as an expression of hatred and intimidation.
Reasoning for such actions can be attributed to anger, envy or spontaneous, opportunistic behaviour – possibly for peer acceptance or bravado in gang cultures, or disgruntlement with the target (victim) person or society. Opportunistic vandalism of this nature may also be filmed, the mentality of which can be akin to happy slapping. The large scale prevalence of gang graffiti in some inner cities has almost made it acceptable to the societies based there – so much so that it may go unnoticed, or not be removed, possibly because it may be a fruitless endeavour, to be graffitied on once again.
In the local regions such as Philippines, Vandalism is merely or commonly defined as an art in which it causes destruction in the environment. This act makes the people happy all the time. Some people in the Philippines also consider Vandalism as a way of revenge in their enemies although many of the politicians have already set an order against this way of act that the people do to have their satisfaction all the time. The crueler thing about this is that even children have the guts to make vandals all over the places most especially in school.
Maybe that is really what true Filipino that would really describe in the saying, “Masarap ang BAWAL. ” Even if they are being scolded still they won’t follow the rules but make even greater damage against the properties. Although vandalism really causes a major problem in our community, still we can have an intervention regarding this matter if all of us contribute to the discipline in the community. All of these things really prove our statement that, “Vandalism is an act which causes defacement in the surroundings and a crass erection of an eyesore. METHODOLOGY RESEARCH INSTRUMENT The instruments we use in doing this research is the survey questionaires as a way of interviewing persons around the school base on our respondents and the topic we are discussing. This helps us in gathering information’s related to the topic that we are researching. In answering the survey questionaires in which it help us support our statements and findings regarding the opinions we have gathered. We explain to them first the purpose of our study so that they may know the relevance of our research paper.
Threre will be six set of questions concerning the place where vandalism is rampant, the reason why people are engaged in vandalism, their opinion on vandalism, how to prevent it, how would they react if they would see a person writing vandals, and the effects of vandalism. RESEARCH LOCAL Our research was conducted as a survey to the students within the campus. The survey included only freshmen from college of education department students and those who belongs to the college of arts and sciences students. Each student was asked to answer the survey questionnaire.
Our survey questionnaire was made based on the thesis statement. Our thesis statement was taken from the cause and effect chart that we have made, out of those ideas; we would be able to formulate our thesis statement. Our survey questionnaire was further enhanced by our teacher. The survey questionnaire was administered to 75 students. 41 students from the college education and 34 students from college of arts and sciences. RESPONDENTS The respondents that we use as our variable in our research study are the people belong to the CAS (College of Arts & Sciences) & IC (Institute of Computing).
They are all first year students population, at ages 16 & above We gather the population of all the first year students on CAS & IC, after that we get the 10% population in both departments. And it results that there are 80 of them will be given survey sheets to answer the following questions that will help us in this research. CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION OF DATA Interpretation: There are 38 respondents composed of 31 girls & 7 boys said that restrooms is the place where vandalism is rampant.
There are also 35 respondents choose walls, 19 choose armchairs, 18 choose doors & tables, 9 choose classroom wall & 8 choose chalkboard/whiteboard & school posts & 2 for others where vandalism is rampant. Interpretation: There are 32 respondents composed of 16 girls & 16 boys said that the way of revenge is the main cause of vandalism. There are also 30 respondents choose undisciplined community, 14 choose laziness, 13 choose peoples way of rebellion, 11 choose gang rivalry & 8 choose expressing emotions & 3 choose others as the main cause of vandalism.
Interpretation: There are 39 respondents composed of 22 girls & 17 boys said that they consider vandalism as destruction in the surroundings. There are also 13 respondents choose self-contentment, 12 choose artwork, 11 choose crime & way of communication, 8 choose hobby, 7 choose asset & 2 choose others as how they consider vandalism. There are 33 respondents composed of 21 girls & 12 boys said that by making an alternative way like engaging in sports activities we can prevent vandalism.
There are also 21 respondents choose by practicing self-discipline, 16 choose by posting warning signs around the campus about vandalism, 14 choose by reporting them to the school authorities, & 5 choose others as a way to prevent vandalism in school. Interpretation: There are 37 respondents composed of 14 girls & 23 boys said that they will call the guard so they may be captured. There are also 23 respondents choose to scold them to stop doing it, 22 choose to ask help from other students to chase them away, 13 choose to just let them continue doing it, 8 hoose to join them to do vandal & 6 choose to yell at them until they run away as how they will react when seeing someone doing vandalism. CHAPTER V SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Vandalism has its main history despite of the fact that it has been defined to us and bare in our minds that it is an act in which graffiti involves and at the same time issues has been reported because of the act of destruction of once property. Vandalism in classroom walls, rest rooms, tables and armchairs are now common in different school and universities nowadays which is very alarming.
From the results we have gathered from conducting a survey at University of Southeastern Philippines in Bo. Obrero, Davao City in which responded by the first year students. We have found out that most vandalism is mostly occurs in the area in the university where people are not usually present like for example in rest rooms. Doing such things has different causes why those people do such these things and our respondents thinks that the main cause of vandalism is the way of revenge of persons fuming emotions about something.
Some people consider vandalism as art graffiti but according to the data gathered, the students consider this as destruction in the surroundings. As an individual we must have our own little way to prevent vandalism in school like we could tell them and encourage engaging in sports and other relevant activities. How will we react if we see someone doing vandalism? According to our respondents the best way to do is call the guard or any school authorities so they maybe capture of what they are doing and defacement is the common effects of vandalism. CONCLUSIONS
Vandalism is a major problem in many areas and adversely affects the community in numerous ways. Having to repair damaged property is expensive and time consuming, and causes negative feelings among community members. Often, vandalistic acts precede more serious criminal behavior, such as gang activity and hate crimes. Vandalism is an illegal, anti-social activity that creates a negative impression of an area and contributes to people’s fear of crime. Thus, Vandalism (the willful damage or defacing of property belonging to another person or the public) is a criminal offense.
Vandalism may be perpetrated wherever the opportunity exists – often in the schools after hours, in public parks after dark, and on premises which are not occupied. Usually vandals do their mischief when they think that no one will see them – at least no one who is likely to stop them. Most acts of vandalism are committed by children and young persons. Consequently, a great responsibility rests with parents to set a good example. Parents must constantly monitor their child’s various stages of development, his or her changes in interest, friends, attitudes, etc.
Parents must ensure their child does not succumb to the negative pressures which all too often end in trouble. Vandalism constitutes the criminal offence of Mischief and, upon conviction, could result in imprisonment for up to 10 years. RECOMMENDATIONS An empty campus can be a temptation for both mischievous kids and adults. What can you do to protect your campus from vandalism? Here are a few suggestions: •Check to be sure your fire and intrusion alarms are working properly. Repair all elements that are malfunctioning. •Check lighting on campus.
Replace all burned out bulbs. Install lighting in currently dark areas. Consider installing motion sensor lights. •Add or increase nightly patrols of campus, especially around the 4th of July when fireworks are plentiful. •Cut back weeds and other vegetation around the campus to reduce fire risk and hiding places. •Shut down the gas supply to science rooms when school is out of session. •Remove garbage cans when school is out of session. Garbage has been used as an ignition source for arson fires. •Check fences and gates for damage. Make repairs and keep gates locked. Get to know your neighbors and ask them to help keep an eye on your campus. •Keep window coverings closed to hide room contents. •Store high value equipment (computers, TVs etc. ) in secure rooms, preferably without windows. APPENDICES Legends: RR- restrooms T- tables O- others W- walls SP- school post AC- armchairs CH- chalkboard CW- classroom walls D- doors Legends:
GR- gang rivalry EE- expressing emotions UC- undisciplined community PW- peoples way of rebellion L- laziness O- others WR- way of revenge Legends: A- Artwork AS-asset D- destruction WC- way of communication SC- self-contentment C- crime H- Hobby O- others Legends: R- by reporting them to the school authorities
SA- by making an alternative way like engaging in sports activities SD- by practicing self-discipline PW- by posting warning signs around the Legends: Y- yell at them until they run away LC- just let them continue doing it AH- ask help from other students to chase them away CG- call the guard so they may be captured ST- scold them to stop doing it T- join them to do vandal O- others
Legends: CE- crass erection of an eyesore SE- the school name will be embarrassed D- defacement O- others CH- chaos BI- bad influence to others ———————– [1] 1 Weisel, D. L. (2000). Graffiti. U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services: Problem Oriented Guides for Police Services,Washington, D. C. , p. 5. 6 Weisel, op. cit. 0 ———————– [pic]
