Vandalism

Rotterdam Centrum (Central Rotterdam) Marius, Levi and Ahmet

Rotterdam Centraal• Our region is Central Rotterdam

• We will be investigating Vandalism in the station of Central Rotterdam and our own school. Who does it? DOES it even happen that much? And what is done against it?

We interviewed 3 different people

And asked these questions: 1. Have you ever vandalised? 2. Do you see vandalism as a crime? 3. If you destroy a window, and you have to pay 310

euros, do you think this is acceptable? 4. How many hours of community service do you think

you have to do if someone breaks your mailbox? 5. Do you see graffiti as vandalism? and why? 6. If you had to give someone a ticket for doing graffiti,

how much money would you say? 7. Do you think chewing gum is vandalism?

1. Have you ever vandalised? !2. Do you see vandalism as a crime? !3. If you destroy a window of a busstation, and you

have to pay 310 euros, do you think this is acceptable?

!4. How many hours of community service do you

think you have to do if someone breaks your mailbox?

!5. Do you see graffiti as vandalism? and why? !6. If you had to give someone a ticket for doing

graffiti, how much money would you say? !7. Do you think chewing gum is vandalism?

• First a man around 40

• Yes

• Yes

• Yes because that’s the price for new window.

• One day

• If it is not anyone’s property I like it.

• 300 euros

• No, it is not acceptable but not vandalism

• A man around 20

!

• Yes

• Yes

• Yes, but it depends on how

• No community service but a ticket.

• If it is on someones property who gives permission, than no.

• As much as needer for repair, or new one.

• no

1. Have you ever vandalised? !2. Do you see vandalism as a crime? !3. If you destroy a window of a busstation, and you

have to pay 310 euros, do you think this is acceptable?

!4. How many hours of community service do you

think you have to do if someone breaks your mailbox?

!5. Do you see graffiti as vandalism? and why? !6. If you had to give someone a ticket for doing

graffiti, how much money would you say? !7. Do you think chewing gum is vandalism?

• A woman around 20

!

• Yes

• Yes

• Yes

• 20 hours

• Yes, if it someones property

• 2000 euros

• no

1. Have you ever vandalised? !2. Do you see vandalism as a crime? !3. If you destroy a window of a busstation, and you

have to pay 310 euros, do you think this is acceptable?

!4. How many hours of community service do you

think you have to do if someone breaks your mailbox?

!5. Do you see graffiti as vandalism? and why? !6. If you had to give someone a ticket for doing

graffiti, how much money would you say? !7. Do you think chewing gum is vandalism?

• We also talked with a police officer.

• He said vandalism is wrong, and think before you do because you can pay the price.

• He also said he didn’t have much experience with solving vandalism issues, so that was a bummer.

Conclusion from interviews

• We noticed that a lot of the answers are the same, most people have the same opinion about vandalism.

• Most people have ever vandalised, whether it is on accident or on purpose.

• Furthermore, all people think the punishments are right.

Here are some pictures we found in the central Station

of Rotterdam

Our schoolHere are some pictures of vandalism in our school

(not that extreme).

Who does it?Vandalism is mostly done by the youth, we call them ‘’hangjongeren’’. Hangjongeren are asocial kids in groups who hang around on street and vandalise the walls. While there are many reasons why they commit vandalism, the most common reason is because they’re just simply bored. Doing this will give them something to do and it will give them adrenaline because they want to commit their action without getting caught. Another common reason why they commit vandalism is because of revenge. If they feel wronged by an individual, teens may take their anger out by anonymously damaging a property of the person who insulted them. Some teens also commit vandalism because it’s an opportunity for the teen to prove his bravery to his group.

Who pays for it?/What are the consequences?

• When something is destroyed, the one that destroyed it has to pay for it, but if this person can’t be found. Most of the times it is payed by the government.

• If someone gets busted while vandalising there are different outcomes. If it’s something small, somebody probably will just have a little talk with them. However, if it’s something big that caused damage (like graffiti) there will be consequences. First of all, the person will be brought to the police office. If they are under-age their parents will be called. The police will ask questions to the children, questions like why they did it. Afterwards the police will look at the damage caused. Depending on the damage caused, they will be sent to either office Halt or to justice (justitie).

• At bureau Halt people will talk youngsters about what they did. They will get a time-based punishment, like cleaning the street for 6 hours. In justice they get condemned with lawyers and a judge. If they did something horrible, they might get an imprisonment or another special kind of punishment.

What is done against it?A lot of parents tell their kids not to destroy

things, but that doesn’t stop all kids from doing it, and of course there are not only kids who do

this. !

It is really hard to stop it, some things aren’t that big of a deal, but some things can really cost a lot of money. Someone can do it when

he/she is really angry and he/she just wants to smash something, or someone just does it for

fun. Either way, it cannot be stopped unless we pay much more attention to it.

!And in the Netherlands, it is not a really big

deal, and not a lot of things are done against it, except some posters that say ‘watch out with

fireworks’.

Most common casesIn our school, most cases of vandalism are things written on walls, or chewing gum sticked under tables. So in our

school it is not that big of a deal, though it sometimes happens that a glass breaks or something. It does not

happen on a large scale. !

And graffiti is also done in some of the small streets and tunnels.

!Firework can be really beautiful and fascinating, and that’s why we have firework on New years eve. However, there

are rules included that some people don’t pay attention to. Many people have illegal firework that can cause a lot of damage to certain object on streets, like litter bins and

containers. Some people even do it deliberately. A lot of used firework is still on the ground for quite a long time as

well, as most people don’t clean it up.

Conclusion

We noticed that vandalism is not a really big deal (from what we have

seen) in Rotterdam. However, it does happen. The worst things we have seen are the trash cans lit on

fire, or blown up with fireworks. Furthermore, we don’t notice a lot

of vandalism around me.