Rise of Legal Graffiti Writing in New York and Beyond

Dr Ronald Kramer is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

• Introduction.- The extraction of subway graffiti: The late 1960s to 1989.- The “clean train” era: Creating a space for the legal production of graffiti.- Responding to the new graffiti writing culture: Broader publics, art worlds, and the sphere of commodity exchange.- The moral panic over graffiti in New York City: Political elites and the mass print media.- Engendering desire for neoliberal penality and the logic of growth machines.- Conclusion.