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The news in Boston right now is swarming around the arrest of the alleged graffiti artist SPEK. Last night, the local Fox News affiliate decided this story was worthy of a minute and a half of prime news time. Do the weekly murders in Dorchester or Roslindale get a minute and a half? No. Why? Because they are poor and black. But some dude’s condo alleyway gets spray-painted and the shit hits the fan. Did this guy seriously compare an alleged vandal to pedophiles and murders? People please wake up. It’s understandable that graffiti or vandalism is against the law. You are changing someone’s property without their approval. But you are not defiling their person or taking a life! So this alarmist “newscaster” asks for a judge to put this kid away for 5 years! 5 years!?!?!? A quick internet search shows that the average time served for unspecified homicide (taking a human life) is 39 months. That’s 1 year 9 months less than what this guy wants for SPEK. A pedophile’s average time served: 35 months. Kidnapping: 33 months. Arson: 22 months. Burglary: 18 months..and the list goes on. Now I think even the most hardcore conservative Republican would see that all of these crimes are much worse than vandalism and would deserve way more time.
You can also look at this situation from a fiscal point of view. When you add up the yearly cost of housing a prisoner, plus the constant need to build more prisons, we are spending an average of $61k a year to put someone away. Now doesn’t this make you want to pick and choose who you are paying to put in prison? Yes, I think it is worth $61,000 to keep a murderer or rapist locked up, but does it make sense to pay $61,000 to keep a kid from painting an old abandoned warehouse? I think the only fitting punishment for a vandal is painting over the art they created. This would be a fitting punishment and provide free labor for the city. Putting a young artist in jail will only create real criminals in touch with vast criminal networks, and the next time he or she visits your home or business it might be a real crime, because we will have paid $61,000 to train them.
Preach on brother. Everyone knows you might get caught doing graffiti, and then you have to pay the consequences…but 5 years is a joke. My homey got killed by a drunk driver and that dude was out in 2.5 years. If SPEK gets more than that imagine the outrage by all the REAL VICTIMS out there.
That’s pretty ridic. If they’re so casually throwing around jail sentences like that then why don’t they start imprisoning people who litter instead of giving them a fine (which isn’t enforced anyhoo). Pretty soon people are going to start serving a few months because they walked where it said “don’t walk on the grass” I mean really now.
What would those 5 years even do? Nothing. It would teach him a “lesson” but he already knew it was illegal. Even just a year in prison would most likely get whatever point across they are trying to convey. All they are trying to do is scare the graffiti world out of vandalism. Instead of using SPEK as a scape goat and dropping 61k on nothing, they could be using money (that no one really has to begin with) to maybe start programs to get graffiti artists on canvas and off of walls. Fuck it, just buy a few abandoned warehouses and call it a day. Oh, wait, that’s right, they’re ABANDONED meaning no one gives a shit.
The government and media need to stop taking one arrest and blow it up in order to scare off people doing the same thing. They don’t do that with murders since it clearly won’t do anything. If anything, a free SPEK movement will arise from this in which little fooligans will deface things with some sort of message conveying that they think its outrageous. However they probably won’t seeing how most kids just want their shitty tag to be seen and have no real passion or substance behind what they do
Whatevs! I hope this made the least bit of sense…I’m still in bed
Xx
What a cunt! You make many great points as always Kerry!
Fuck this dude! I am sure he is the first one trying to fight the law when his fat ass gets a speeding ticket (taking it up in court) or when security won’t let him in the elevator because his ass is too huge!
peace
I like your research on that one kerry!
that guy is a damn faschist, that’s what I say!
since when do “news”-reporters convey their opinion anyway? that’s not how it’s meant to be!
I’m looking forward to a anti-FOX”news”/murdoch shirt…
Yeah… a damn “faschist” I say!
just in case mr. ALPHabet was wondering, that word ‘faschist’ is german for ‘fascist’. Shouldn’t have been too hard to find out for yourself, should it? 😛
Didn√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t realize you were German.
As for the whole situation…
Every year a writer gets busted and every year they try to make an example of this person. Last year it was TEL and KET, this year it’s SPEK and Years ago it was RJ. The only thing the legal system can do is fine them and give them probation. In less they have priors or were already on probation when they were arrested there are not many ways they can hold them or give them time. When it comes down to it if you have a lawyer and the judge isn√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really pissed off you are all set. You are going to have to pay a lot of money and re think your priorities but I mean… we are criminals and we are vandalizing peoples property… what do you expect? Every one gets caught.
KET got off with no jail time and that dude has been crushing NYC since the fucking 80’s. People do get time (RJ, GKAE, 2ESAE, MAP) but not just for graff. The media makes it so black and white, but so do the writers.
Best of luck to SPEK and if Proletariat wants to do a legal defense fund raiser/ art auction for the dude I√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll be more than happy to contribute work.
Alph you have said way too much about people you don’t know. Shut the fuck up! This is a public board anyone can read this. You are offering up way too much info.