LSAT Logic and Graffiti in California

I don't remember how I found this photo, but once I saw it, I knew I'd have to post about it.

The Santa Ana Police Department created a "useful" graphic to help parents determine whether their children are graffiti artists, aka "taggers."

The poster claims that a child who meets only two of the criteria in the poster is probably a tagger.

(Yes, graffiti - Banksy, anyway - is something white people like.)

Looking at the criteria:

-Hood, hat, and bandana
-Fat markers
-Black book
-Gloves
-Stencil
-Backpack

(I'm assuming that everything listed after the dash in the photo is speculation, not fact. Otherwise, each criterion would already have the presumption of guilt, which strikes me as particularly unreasonable.)

Hood, hat, and bandana
Could be fashion statement or used while committing some other crime

Fat markers
Could be for legal art, could be for school project
(Who uses markers for test-taking, anyway?)

Black book
Could be for legal art, could be personal journal / art book. I can think of plenty of kids who draw in notebooks with no intention of ever creating graffiti. What about all those girls who used to draw ponies?

Gloves
My first thought was that the presence of gloves is virtually meaningless. Then, I remembered that it's probably never cold in Santa Ana. However, maybe the gloves are a fashion statement, the kid's working as a doorman, or the kid is wearing gloves in order to get away with committing some other crime.

Stencil
Could be for legal art (perhaps in previously-mentioned black book)

Backpack
Most kids use backpacks in school. This criterion is meaningless.

Even if we consider the presence of graffiti on the backpack, it's possible that this kid is a victim of taggers. Or maybe this kid just wanted to decorate his/her backpack.

***

With a little thinking outside the box, it's pretty clear that no two criteria alone are enough to justify a heavy suspicion of tagging.

Don't be too hard on your artsy kids, parents of Santa Ana. They might not be graffiti artists after all. They might be burglars.


Photo by thomashawk / CC BY-NC 2.0