The Graffiti Squad, will explore the graffiti art movement among teenagers during the 1960s through the 1980s. The narrative will not only discuss how “broken windows policing” drove Philadelphia’s police department to create a special squad in 1971 to police “wall writers,” but also explore how community activists, teachers, and professional artists worked with former wall writers to create murals across the city through organizations like the Mural Arts Program and in unregulated industrial spaces like Graffiti Pier. This project will also look at how the modern graffiti to public art movement migrated and evolved in New York and Baltimore. The core argument of this project is that government spending on crime prevention and poverty alleviation is more effective than spending on the apprehension of suspects after a crime is committed. My research will show that cities should financially invest heavily in schools, recreation centers, arts and sports programs, job training, and libraries rather than police and prisons because it is cheaper and makes our society safer and more productive than one committed to racial capitalism and the proliferation of concentrated poverty.