Friday, August 24, 2012

Fighting Crime with Concertos



Want to lower crime in Flint? Classical music may be part of the solution. Erin Rose reports in Positive Detroit that it worked in various cities, including London, West Palm Beach, and Lancaster in Los Angeles County:
Mayor R. Rex Pariss had 70 speakers installed along a half mile of Lancaster Blvd and for five hours a day, played a blend of classical music and bird songs (birds chirping). Mayor Pariss believed the bird song and music combination would calm citizens and essentially deter crime. 
Results: After 10 months of playing the bird song/classical music combination: Minor crimes fell 15%. Major crimes fell 6%. Maria Elena Grado, who runs the Lemon Leaf CafĂ©, says the area was "crime infested" when she opened in 2006. "Everybody laughed at the idea, but people don't even realize the things that make them tick."


No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.