FBI stats show 5% drop in crime. Rate your doctors: how much do reviews tell you about a physician? Are hawks becoming doves? Policy experts who are wavering in their support of U.S. military action in Afghanistan. Later, with smog, asthma, crime and drug use, how do you stay healthy in megacities like LA?
Crime rate down 5% nationwide according to FBI
Tough economic times lead to more crime, right? Not necessarily. FBI statistics out today show a 5% drop in the national crime rate that follows the trend of decreased crime over the last two decades. Violent crime is down too—nearly 10 of every 100,000 Americans were murdered in 1991, that rate has since been cut in half. What’s behind the crime drop? Do better policing and decreased influence of crack cocaine tell the whole story? Are more people in prison? And when will we know the toll the recession takes?
Guests:
John Conklin, Professor of Sociology, Tufts University
Mark A.R. Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy at UCLA, editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis and author of When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment
How do you rate doctors?
The California Medical Association announced on Thursday that they are suing Blue Shield of California over their “Blue Ribbon Recognition Program,” a service that provides blue ribbons to signify good doctors. The docs are charging that the methodology is questionable: and may give too much credit for doctors who simply don’t charge much. But this begs a larger question: how do you rate doctors? It’s something the RAND Corporation is studying, as are other health care analysts, and it’s not an easy thing to crack. One can’t simply give one doctor an “A” and one a “B,” because there’s so much to consider. Does the doctor have good bedside manner? Is the doctor thorough? Does the doctor give too many tests, or too few?
Guests:
John Adams, senior statistician at the RAND Corporation and RAND Health
Shana Alex Lavarreda, Director of Health Insurance Studies, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Hawks to doves: can the military succeed in Afghanistan?
Prominent policy analysts who once supported the war in Afghanistan are now questioning whether our attempts to stabilize that country are worth the cost, Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus wrote Sunday. Paul Pillar, a former CIA counter-terrorism official, supported the initial military intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001 but doesn’t support the subsequent expansion of the U.S. effort to a prolonged counterinsurgency to stabilize Afghanistan. Others think we should stay the course. Is a military victory in Afghanistan possible? Is it worth the cost? And, have you changed your mind on our involvement in Afghanistan?
Guests:
Paul R. Pillar, Visiting Professor and Director of Studies in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University
Max Boot, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; author and military historian
Medicating the megacities
More than half the world’s population now lives in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. Our bodies often pay a heavy price for urban living – from asthma, heart disease and diabetes, to alcohol and drug abuse. Now, scientists are researching ways through environmental medicine to counteract some of those negative effects. Could a pill inoculate us from smog? Can we target genes that would make us resistant to resurgent infectious diseases?
Guest:
Greg Critser, author of A Pill for Los Angeles? Medicating the Megacities and Eternity Soup: Inside the Quest to End Aging