Spray-painted scrawl is ever present on walls, utility boxes, signs and buildings around O'ahu despite increasing efforts and marked determination to wipe it away from neighborhoods.

Graffiti is a persistent problem, not only in the eyes of law enforcement and government officials but private property owners who must clean up and pay for damage they regard as visual garbage. Graffiti abatement groups reclaim tagged areas with fresh paint and police make arrests for vandalism, but taggers remain undeterred.

In 2005, the Honolulu Police Department investigated 1,111 graffiti cases and made 227 arrests. So far this year, police have opened 1,145 cases and made 228 arrests. They credit the stepped-up pace, in part, to the public's ongoing reporting of graffiti problems.

"We're putting resources into it, so we're making arrests on our own," said Lt. Gui DeMello, with the Pearl City police station. "But we're also getting cooperation from the public as far as reporting."

DeMello said tough court sentencing in some individual cases, such as that involving 19-year-old freeway tagger Webster Agudong, may prompt tagging peers to think twice before spray-painting.

Last month, Agudong, who pleaded guilty to painting graffiti on two highway signs last year, was ordered to serve four weekends in jail and spend 200 hours helping clean up graffiti. Agudong was also ordered by Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto to pay $5,211 for the cost of replacing the signs, one on the H-1 Freeway near Waikele and another on Farrington Highway near Waipahu High School.

DeMello noted that in the wake of Agudong's case, fewer and smaller markings are turning up on the freeway. Still, he said more needs to be done, because graffiti won't end through punishment alone. Pointing to various Web sites that display graffiti photographs and information about the pieces, he said, "It's a culture and it needs to be stopped."

Several community groups are fighting paint with paint.

Two years ago, the Waikele Community Association was spending thousands of dollars a month hiring private contractors to paint over graffiti, said Malcolm Ching, the association's general manager. "It was so awful that after you repaint it they would tag it within five hours," he said.

The association's efforts were futile, Ching said, until the community put together a TAG (Taking Action against Graffiti) team to respond immediately whenever new graffiti went up. Team members now keep paint, brushes and marker removal equipment at their homes, and often work alone. They communicate with each other by e-mail, snap photographs of graffiti and report outbreaks to police. Ching said the reporting and record-keeping could be used to help persuade the Legislature to pass stricter laws pertaining to graffiti.

The key to motivating TAG members, Ching said, is to keep the work fun and not take the graffiti affront personally.

"We see it as a game," Ching said. "If we lose, we just go out there and paint it again. If they lose, they go to jail. So they have more at risk and they'll probably run out of money before we do."

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com.