Fact 5: Fight Crime With It
Quick, if you were asked to deter loitering at a subway station, who would you hire? A security guard? A creepy clown? How about Mozart?
Many business and city officials have started pumping classical music out onto the street in high crime areas, like parking lots, in order to discourage criminal activity. The thought process is that the music is so obnoxious that people wouldn’t want to hang around it. But it’s also based in science: when you hear music you don’t like, your dopamine production is suppressed, putting you in a bad mood and making you want to avoid the area. Or maybe it just makes people more docile and calm. Whatever the case, it appears to be working: London started playing classical music in its subway stations in 2003, and within a year and a half robberies and vandalism dropped by a third. And for all you country music fans, know that somewhere there is a business that is using your favorite music to purposely annoy people off of their property.