Victoria Borja started doing illegal graffiti in middle school.
"It's all on the risk. You know you might get in trouble and just the thought of that makes it even more fun," Borja says.
She loved the thrill of putting her work in front of an audience.
"It's not just for yourself, but for other people to know how you're expressing yourself, it's like your own art gallery but everyone can see it and it's for free," she says.
She was never caught vandalizing property, but she did end up at a correctional school.
After taking a class about graffiti arts, Borja says she's stopped illegal tagging.
The Graffiti Education and Mural Arts program is one of the most recent efforts by the county's juvenile justice system to keep potential delinquents out of trouble.
These recent efforts appear to be working ā there are empty beds in San Diego county's juvenile detention center and the number of kids in juvenile hall there is down nearly half from just six years ago.
To continue reading this article by Quinn Owen, go to: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/...a-can-of-spray-paint
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