By Bren­dan O’Neill

(Rea­son) In Jan­u­ary it was revealed that West Park School, in Derby in the mid­lands of Eng­land, was “sub­ject­ing” (its words) badly behaved chil­dren to Mozart and oth­ers. In “spe­cial deten­tions,” the chil­dren are forced to endure two hours of clas­si­cal music both as a relax­ant (the head­mas­ter claims it calms them down) and as a deter­rent against future bad behav­ior (appar­ently the num­ber of dis­rup­tive pupils has fallen by 60 per cent since the deten­tions were introduced.)

Tyne and Wear in the north of Eng­land was one of the first parts of the UK to weaponize clas­si­cal music. The young peo­ple were “not get­ting up to crim­i­nal activ­i­ties,” admit­ted Tyne and Wear Metro, but they were “swear­ing, smok­ing at sta­tions and harass­ing pas­sen­gers.” So the rail­way com­pany unleashed “blasts of Mozart and Vivaldi.” The youth fled.

In York­shire in the north of Eng­land, the local coun­cil has started play­ing clas­si­cal music through vandal-​​proof speak­ers at “trou­ble­some bus-​​stops” between 7:30 PM and 11:30 PM. Shops in Worces­ter, Bris­tol, and North Wales have also taken to “fir­ing out” bursts of clas­si­cal music to ward of feck­less youngsters.

In Holy­wood (in County Down in North­ern Ire­land, not to be con­fused with Hol­ly­wood in Cal­i­for­nia), local busi­ness­peo­ple encour­aged the coun­cil to pipe clas­si­cal music as a way of get­ting rid of young­sters who were spit­ting in the street and doing graf­fiti. And appar­ently clas­si­cal music defeats street art: The graf­fiti lev­els fell.

Read the rest: Weaponiz­ing Mozart — Rea­son Mag­a­zine.