Music as repellent
Using music to drive away certain people is different than music used to, for example, attract customers at shopping malls, explained Lily Hirsch, a musicologist and visiting scholar at Cal State Bakersfield.
In her book, “Music in American Crime Prevention and Punishment,” she cites many examples of stores and agencies using music as a negative tool, something that fits the category of crime prevention through environmental design.
“Music can be used in all kinds of ways,” Hirsch said in a March 13 interview. “People are always surprised by this.”
L.A. Metro is using music to mark the space for those they welcome, namely transit riders who pay their fares, she said.
“They are trying to bother people who would stay there a long time,” she said. “By targeting a specific group, they are marking that space and making only certain people comfortable and others not.”
Hirsch has learned of similar tactics used in the London Underground subway stations. The Washington Post reported in a
2012 article that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees transportation facilities including bridges, tunnels, bus depots, seaports and airports, used classical music to drive off criminals.
West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2019 blasted a children's song, “Baby Shark,” to keep homeless people away from an events center, Hirsch said.
7-Eleven stores often play loud music just outside to discourage homeless people who are panhandling or sleeping near the store entrance, she reported in her book.
She learned of flipping music — from luring people in to driving them out — from a 2006 news story about a town near Sydney, Australia, playing Barry Manilow songs to keep away unruly teenagers.
to solve the problem of homeless people sleeping at stations and in train cars.
“The city should address homelessness and people with mental health problems,” said Hamid Kahn, an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. “You can't close your eyes and expect people to go away. So-called hobos riding trains is an old American phenomenon.”
Hirsch said the use of anti-crime tactics can be seen as effective — at least in the short term.
“It doesn't solve the problem in the long run,” she said. “You are just pushing the problem somewhere else.”
Hirsch said that in her research, classical music is used to delineate acceptance by class.
“Whenever classical music gets used, it has such strong association with the elite, with money,” Hirsch said. “They (L.A. Metro) want an association with a higher class, not with the unhoused.”
A person's association with Mozart or Beethoven may be pleasant, high-brow or something else entirely, because music is subjective.
“It doesn't bother me very much,” said rider Tonya, regarding the music at the Metro station. “But it is a little scary. In scary movies, they usually use this kind of music for the violent scenes, you know, the scary parts.”