I was thinking about this in the context of the graffiti subculture around the German rail system. It's pretty interesting and different from random tagging.
I somewhat agree with you if we are talking about low effort tagging, especially on homes.
However if I had to choose between some ambitious criminals being given a large amount of money or if some wall getting a bad piece of art on it, I would always choose the latter.
I am for tough penalties on the authors of grafitis. At least make them pay the full cost of cleaning them up plus heavy fines.