Sniffing Out Crime - Banksy

Banksy, in his work "Snorting Copper," probably created in 2005, turns the image of a crouched police officer snorting a white line from the pavement into a brutal visual metaphor for the ethical collapse of authority.

This mural, executed with spray paint on a brick wall in the stencil style, demonstrates technical mastery in the contrast of silhouettes, using sharp whites and angular shadows to generate an almost photographic sense of movement and humiliation.

In the United Kingdom, the police force is colloquially called “coppers” because the badges worn by its first officers in the 19th century were made from a copper alloy. Etymologically, however, it’s also linked to the English verb “to cop” (to capture), adding a layer of semantic irony to the act Banksy depicts. The artist, associated with the contemporary urban art movement, draws on the rebellious legacy of postmodernism and situationism, but updates it with a semiotic precision that has influenced digital muralists and protest designers worldwide. This artwork appeared at a time when cocaine seizures in England, according to estimates, rose from less than 1.5 tons in 2005 to over 28 tons in 2024, revealing an underground crisis that urban art exposes without filters. Simultaneously, the increase in misconduct accusations against the British police has strained the link between surveillance and legitimacy, turning works like this into symbolic records of collective distrust. Unlike traditional political art, which argues its point, Banksy delivers a direct visual punch: the officer’s body, once a symbol of order, now bows toward the pavement—not to serve, but to compulsively snort.

Thus, “Police Instinct” stands as a corrosive critique in an era of institutional opacity, where power reeks of excess and authority blurs amid dust and cynicism.