GRAFFITI is generally considered to be the application of images or letterings marked, scrawled, scratched or painted in any manner on property.

But it is no consolation to property owners, whether private individuals or collective public groupings, that it is a universal occurrence that evidence shows has existed since ancient times.

That is why in Barbados, as in most other countries, the unauthorised placement of graffiti on property is deemed vandalism and punishable by law.

And the serious enforcement of the appropriate Barbadian law and its strengthening where necessary are what are urgently needed if we are to stem the tide and hopefully stamp out what could very well be an upsurge in this form of vandalism of our public spaces.

Most recently, the eyes of the public were rudely opened to this worrisome development by the activities of alleged gangs carrying out their nefarious deeds on buildings in the publicly owned and maintained Queen's Park.

Not long before this exposure, Mr Erskine King, director of the National Sports Council, had cause to complain about the graffiti that had appeared on the walls of the institution's community centres.

There have been down through the ages sharply divergent views between those who see graffiti as nothing more than crass vandalism and those who seek to attribute to it more highly desirable social functions such as a medium of expression for social and political messages, and even as a form of art worthy of being displayed in galleries and exhibitions.

But judging from the content of the graffiti in Queen's Park, there is nothing about them whatsoever that even attempts to be graphically artistic, or even literary, far less sociological or ideological.

Member of Parliament Hamilton Lashley supports the view that "graffiti is a method of communication for gangs".

And to counteract this function, Mr Lashley has suggested a "whitewash" programme designed to paint "positive" murals over gang graffiti.

While the proposed move to cover up the negative gang markings with positive murals is an understandable one, it does not in any way begin to address the social, psychological and other factors that must influence those who administer the objectionable graffiti in the first place.

Is it social alienation or anomie that drove such action?

If we accept there is no reason at all why we should feel the need to hold gang activity as an acceptable norm of our national life, then we have a grave responsibility to minimise and ultimately eradicate it completely.

We must not be influenced by the powerful and seductive persuasiveness of the many modern forms of communication from other cultures,that seek to glamourise gang grafitti.