Presuming that street art could be a form of crime which
could cause “harm”, while the street artist would be a type of
criminal, who would be an “offender” and there would be “victim”s
to these offences, it should have been possible to define it
under a type of crime. It was obvious that street art could not be
categorized as Organized, Corporate, State, State-Corporate or
White-Collar Crimes, yet it was possible to squeeze it into fitting
Blue-Collar, Political, Public-Order Crimes and/or Juvenile
Delinquency. It seems as though there is just too much subjecttivity
concerning what Vandalism is and/or what it means;
where the line is drawn between what is ordinary political dissent
shared and what is a threat to the State and/or the current
regime; what interferes with the operations of society and the
ability of people to function efficiently; even the exact age of
most street artists.
After trying to establish which type of crime street art would
fit properly in and failing, an attempt was made in examining
street art using a criminological point of view, with criminological
and deviance theories in order to understand and explain
it better. This resulted with noting that while some theories such
as the labeling and social control theories assumptions and
the street art experience were not consistent (even opposite at
times), some theories assumptions and the street art experience
was consistent. Amongst those consistent, there were theories
that are better at gathering information on the how’s behind
what is happening and would not do much in helping understand
the reasons behind what is happening such as the differential
association and subcultural theory; while there were theoies
that could in fact be very helpful in understanding the why’s