The assessment of graffiti’s magnitude is difficult since its data is hard to get. Moreover, usually graffiti is considered among many other things as vandalism and petty crimes: data on graffiti is always in a sort of hotchpotch or mixture of minor crimes. The exception is Austria, where graffiti is listed as a category by itself. As a result, numbers are hard to compare as different kinds of facts or assumptions are included. Solely this may be quite informative, in terms of the conception of the problem.

In Austria, one of the most reliable sources to measure the extent of graffiti vandalism in the same way over the last years is the official statistic of complaints on graffiti reported to the police. In this case graffiti is not mixed up with other offences (e.g. vandalism) like in other countries. However, it has to be kept in mind that the official complaints of course only present a part of the illegal graffiti done in Austria. It can be assumed that a lot of illegal graffiti never get reported to the police (especially private victims).

For more information on the magnitude of the phenomenon, please see in resources: Graffolution D2.2 Regional, cultural, ethical, privacy and legal aspects and influence factors report.