Transportation
Getting a Handel on Transit Crime
Some public transportation systems are using classical music to deter criminals — but does it work?
Last week the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that transit officials have started to play Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Strauss and Handel at the Lake Street light rail station in an effort to dissuade criminal behavior.
The "classical music strategy" began last summer after complaints that the station had become "a haven for rowdy teens and vagrants." The idea is that potential criminals find classical music so detestable that they won't hang around the station long enough to realize their criminal potential: