Unauthorized graffiti caused property damage worth around seven million euros in the Free State last year. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior told the radio station Antenna Bavaria with. Accordingly, the amount of damage was around 500,000 euros below the comparable value from 2022. The number of property damage caused by graffiti also fell in Bavaria year-on-year, the report said. The police recorded 10,340 cases across Bavaria – this corresponds to a decrease of 13.6 percent or 1,629 cases compared to the previous year.
From the point of view of the Ministry of the Interior, property owners can protect themselves from such damage to property: “Possible measures recommended here include good lighting in conjunction with motion detectors or video surveillance, greening of the facades, rough, uneven plaster surfaces or colorful walls from the outset in order to protect the areas for “To make sprayers uninteresting.” In this context, it is also important to remove graffiti as quickly as possible so as not to create “gallery areas” for sprayers. “In addition to the criminal consequences, the perpetrators are particularly entitled to claims for damages after the crimes, which can amount to many thousands of euros,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior.
Concepts that are already established in several cities in Bavaria would come into play here and promote active compensation for damage with the so-called perpetrator-victim compensation. In concrete terms, this means help from those who caused it in removing the graffiti. According to the Criminal Code, spraying graffiti is criminal damage because it damages or destroys someone else’s property. This also applies if the appearance of someone else’s property is only temporarily changed without authorization.