LONDON: Graffiti jailing protest (From News Shopper)

LONDON: Graffiti jailing protest

6:15pm Saturday 14th February 2009 in

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A PROTEST calling for an end to custodial sentencing for non-violent graffiti offenders took place outside the Royal Courts of Justice today.

Around 50 people turned out in central London to demonstrate against sending graffiti offenders to prison.

Last Saturday 23-year-old graffiti artist Tom Collister from Penge hanged himself in jail.

He had belonged to a gang which carried out a two-year campaign of vandalism on trains and stations around south London.

Collister was serving a 30-month sentence after admitting conspiracy to cause criminal damage.

Protest organiser Charles Sullivan, aged 21, of Stamford Drive, Bromley, said: “What lessons are to be learnt from time spent in prison for a non-violent crime?

“Would those lessons be better learnt from service to the community?”

Protestor Maria Cooke from Battersea felt so passionately about Mr Collister's death that she decided to join the protest today.

The 46-year-old said: "It's such injustice.

"He committed a crime. However, 30 months in jail was extreme and there does seem to be an exaggeration of the cost of damage.

"Community service would be more appropriate. Maybe get the youths to clean the graffiti off instead."