On Nov. 30, plainclothes officers caught and arrested two vandals in the act of defacing the Jerome Avenue overpass at Mosholu Parkway. After attending a debriefing session hosted by the city’s Anti-Vandalism Task Force, the 52nd Precinct officers knew just what they were looking for.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg signed a law requiring property owners of six or more units to remove graffiti from their buildings or sign a waiver to let the city do it. The mayor said fines of up to $300 would be enforced.

These events are part of a graffiti prevention and cleanup renaissance, not only in the northwest Bronx, but also all over the city. Residents can call 311 to report graffiti in a public place to have the city clean it up. But thanks to new technology, dynamic police involvement and the burgeoning presence of business improvement districts (BIDs), cleanup and prevention efforts are taking root across the city.

Although graffiti as an art form has a significant place in the cultural history of the Bronx, the formation of the Anti-Graffiti Task Force in 1995 did a lot to clean up the streets and the transit system. Much of what remains — including the graffiti you see marring Norwood buildings — is just plain vandalism, said Officer Matt Crowley, who works with the 52nd Precinct’s Auxiliary Unit, a group of officers and volunteers dispatched specifically to deal with quality of life issues and community affairs. Their theory about battling graffiti is characteristic of the approach taken by just about everyone the Norwood News spoke to for this article: Be persistent; think small.

“It becomes a cat and mouse game. We clean it and they keep coming back. Hopefully we tire them out,” Crowley said.

It’s now a high-tech cat and mouse game, with digital camera-equipped officers snapping photos of graffiti and submitting them to Graffitistat, a citywide tracking program similar to Compstat, the acclaimed system for tracking crime data. The who, what, when, where and how of every arrest and every major tag is logged into the system, allowing unprecedented information sharing and collaboration across all the city’s crime prevention agencies. Vandalism arrests have nearly doubled since the system was implemented a year and a half ago, said Deputy Inspector Joseph Hoch, commander of the 52nd Precinct.

“It’s integral to what we’re doing [to prevent graffiti],” said Hoch.

Intelligence gathered from Graffitistat was vital to the arrests made in the Mosholu Parkway incident, said Special Operations Lieutenant Jerry O’Sullivan. “These were guys who like to get their names out,” he said, in an area the police knew was graffiti-prone.

Officers from his precinct have also been playing an increased role in cleanup in recent years. After obtaining a signed permission waiver from the owner of the buildings at 205th Street and Perry Avenue and faxing in the paperwork to the mayor’s office, Crowley was on hand recently to oversee that cleanup. (Although he usually wouldn’t attend a cleanup, he said, this area was notorious for its popularity among rowdy cliques of taggers like Los Locos and the Bainbridge Boys, and he wanted to ensure the safety of the workers.) Wielding pressure cleaners, two employees from Graffiti Free NYC, an organization funded by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, conducted it.

Cops say it’s not just an aesthetic improvement, but vital to the security of a neighborhood, Crowley said. “Muggers see graffiti and feel safe to commit crimes,” he said. “But if you have a well-lit, clean block, they know the community is involved and they stay away,” he said.

There are also other large-scale ways graffiti is cleaned up in the Bronx.

The Fordham Road and Jerome-Gun Hill BIDs serve a significant number of northwest Bronx businesses. Combined, the two entities comprise more than 500 businesses.

Dan Bernstein, deputy director of the Fordham Bedford BID, and Roberto Garcia, executive director of the Jerome-Gun Hill BID, agree that keeping the streets clean and graffiti free is vital to preserving a business-friendly environment.

The BIDs’ staff members personally walk the streets whenever they can, looking for fresh vandalism to report to Partners in Grime, which employs street cleaners who work every day of the year. The cleaners work on a seven-day cycle, so that when graffiti is reported, it’s gone by the following Saturday.

When you see graffiti, it’s usually a sign of urban decay that makes people feel unwelcome, which is bad for business, Garcia said.

Added Bernstein: “The visual perception may not be accurate, but it’s definitely how people tend to feel, and it might stop them from investing or shopping in an area.”

And, the average citizen can do his or her part as well, not just by reporting graffiti, but also by helping police with anonymous tips—rewards of $500 are available—or by calling 911 to report an incident in progress.