Murals Against Crime
This guide investigates the positive impacts of the Mural Arts Program's initiative to combat the high crime rate in Philadelphia by bringing together communities in the creation of murals.
In 2007, Philadelphia's violent crime rate per capita was over two-times the national average. Out of 32 cities with 500,000+ residents, Philadelphia was ranked the 6th most dangerous large city. For a long time, Philadelphia's frequent graffiti problem was closely connected to gangs and more violent crimes.
The Mural Arts Program (MAP) began in 1984 as a program for the youths in the Anti-Graffiti Network of Philadelphia. Although it was intended to be a 6 week program, 25 years later, it is still serving its original purpose using the creation of murals to battle crime and positively influence Philadelphia communities. MAP has a number of programs which offer troubled youth and inmates at local correctional facilities opportunities to develop social skills, discuss the effects of crime and help restore communities that they had negatively affected through their crime. The murals have become a symbol of the city.
We were interested to see if making visible the connections between murals and crime would highlight the impact of MAP's initiative and provide benefits to the city. We focused on the four crimes most threatening to pedestrians (Theft, Robberies, Burglaries and Assaults) and 8 categories of murals (Abstract, Figurative, Social Concern, Cultural, Landscape, History, Portrait and Youth). We analyzed murals citywide, by zip code and by a two-block radius to provide users with a sense of neighborhood aesthetics and safety, as well as the direct effects of specific murals. Stories by participants of the program provide a personal account of the impact of MAP.
