Reformed Surrey graffiti artist works to rehab those drawn to life of 'tagging'
Jul 05, 2011
from the article by Tom Zillich in The Vancouver Sun:
Reformed graffiti artist Pontus Agren is drawing up plans to save a rehab program aimed at the kind of "criminal" he used to be.
RestArt was first conceived by grad students and professors in SFU's School of Criminology, and launched in 2004. Recently, the program was threatened by government funding cuts.
....For his thesis, Agren interviewed seven program co-ordinators who had been involved in the rehabilitation of 100 illegal taggers over a six-year period. His study found 70 per cent of the program's participants hadn't reoffended and the program had indeed transformed their lives, along with others associated with it.
