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The whole community bears the cost of graffiti, but so far none of the vandals responsible have been held accountable, members of the Juneau Police Department told the Assembly on Monday.

"We have not actually caught anyone in the act, as of this point. They can see us coming," Sgt. Tom Bates told the Assembly.

Bates has a growing stack of unresolved vandalism cases on his desk. Graffiti has been an ongoing problem in the city, but has widened to the entire city and picked up in the last year especially.

The police department brought the issue to the Assembly to raise awareness and to suggest anti-graffiti policies.

Assistant Chief Page Decker said the department's mission statement is not just to defeat crime, but also to combat its perception in the community.

"This just flies in the face of that. ... This is something we want to attack," Decker said.

Bates offered a copy of an ordinance in effect in Anchorage that requires victims of graffiti to clear it from their property in a timely manner or else face fines. That "victimizes the victim," but Bates offered a counter argument.

"If someone else dumps garbage on your porch, would you leave it there? Graffiti is just another type of trash. If you leave it there, it's going to stink up the neighborhood."

And that's part of the rationale behind the proposed policy. Where graffiti goes unchecked, more graffiti follows and spreads like a "blight on the community," Bates said. It's for that reason that designating certain areas OK for graffiti has been a "dismal failure" in other communities.

Besides the immediate costs of cleanup and tough to measure impacts on tourism and peace of mind, Bates said studies have shown that tolerating graffiti leads to more serious crimes including burglary, theft, assault and auto theft.

"It's hard to believe just writing on a wall can lead to that, but it's been shown in many, many incidences," Bates said.

Assembly members raised a number of concerns stemming from the proposed ordinance, such as absentee business owners who are unable to comply timely, weather limitations with repainting in the cold, wet weather and resistance in the business community, particularly without some kind of quid pro quo promise from the city or police department.

"If I were a business owner bearing responsibility ... I think I'd want the City and Borough of Juneau to make an investment in prevention or apprehension to accompany my commitment to clean up," Assembly member Bob Doll said.

One way the city could make such an investment is through discrete, motion-sensitive video cameras. The product the police had in mind captures images of vandals in the act and also silently alerts police as it is in progress. The drawback is that the cameras cost several thousand dollars each.

The Assembly decided to arrange meetings with representatives of the Downtown Business Association, the Juneau Chamber of Commerce and the Juneau Police Department to continue discussing potential measures to combat graffiti.