Senior Sergeant Gavin Briggs, of Dunedin North, said police were investigating five wilful damage complaints after graffiti was sprayed and painted on several Northeast Valley properties on Saturday night, mostly in the Northumberland and Paris Sts area.
The same style of graffiti had since been put on property and power boxes on North Rd.
As well as ensuring teenagers and children had restricted access to cans of spray paint, police want parents in the area to check their children's school books for "tagging" designs.
"We are urging parents and teachers to check children's exercise books for 'doodling', which may later be appearing as graffiti on fences and buildings in the area.
"Parents should not be worried about getting their children into trouble. Often a good talking-to from the community constable is enough to nip these things in the bud, and alternative action would be looked at rather than prosecution," Snr Sgt Briggs said.
Task Force Green project co-ordinator Alex Griffin said the group had removed more graffiti from property in Northeast Valley, following a two-month quiet period.
The group, which has five people removing tagging from properties around Dunedin each week, is funded by the Dunedin City Council, and receives paint from a local retailer.
Taggers often had no sense of the impact of the vandalism, nor of the inability of some people in the community to remove graffiti, Mr Griffin said.
"We try and remove graffiti from properties where people cannot necessarily cover or remove graffiti themselves. It can be very upsetting for elderly and is very foreign for them and a real problem to remove."
In Auckland, a joint effort between Auckland City Council and police has led to the arrest of eight of the city's 10 most destructive graffiti vandals.
The council's community services committee chairman, Paul Goldsmith, said all eight were now before the courts.
Mr Goldsmith said the arrests were the result of a collaborative operation between Auckland City Council and the police to eradicate graffiti vandalism in the city.
They had brought the number of arrests of graffiti vandals since July to 31.
"The council's focus is now to apprehend the next group of the city's worst graffiti vandals."
Mr Goldsmith said the 0800 STOP TAGS offender information phone line, which offers cash rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of graffiti vandals, was producing good results.
The council also introduced a citywide eradication service in July, with contractors removing graffiti vandalism all year round.
The new service had led to the removal of graffiti from more than 16,000 sites.
"Getting rid of graffiti vandalism demands a zero-tolerance approach, and part of this involves removing the graffiti as quickly and consistently as possible," Mr Goldsmith said.
- With NZPA
