The new anti-scratchiti NYC subway ads
I’ve been racking my brain trying to recall other instances where advertising has been used as a crime deterrence strategy – or at least this is what NYC Transit authorities are giving as the reason behind their new ad policy. According to Jennifer 8. Lee of the New York Times:
“Despite the M.T.A. budget shortfall, transit officials say that advertising revenue is not the main motivation for the program. Instead, the sprawling ads have a practical purpose. The first is to reduce what officials call “scratchiti,” or scratched graffiti on the windows.”
The rationale to this decision is of course absurd. I, for one, would much rather look through scratchiti than at an ad. Indeed, according to the Gothamist, the full window ads
aren’t the kind that you can see clearly out of either, as one disgruntled straphanger noted: “outward visibility is significantly reduced in outdoor lighting, and severely reduced to totally eliminated at night or in low lighting.”
Aside from the obvious personal safety issues introduced by the ads’ placement, which transit officials continue to refute, there is the more philosophical question of why a paid solicitation that directly inconveniences the rider should be considered categorically preferable to the relatively noninvasive, and no less aesthetically offensive, scratchiti-work.
Whatever the case may be, the NYC Transit’s decision to extend ad creep to subway windows for, so they say, crime prevention purposes signals one more step in the expansion of a highly manipulable CPTED logic. As to whether ‘crime prevention through environmental design’ actually works, – and CPTED designs have been shown to be effective, under certain circumstances – is here besides the point: not only do the negative effects of the new ad policy far outweigh the benefits, but its rationale now even seems to primarily function as a ‘rhetoric’ with which to dress up otherwise outrageous, unacceptable measures.
