Journalist Malcolm Gladwell is famous for mining behavioral science for his work, and when it comes to better understanding the intersection of crime, violence, and policing, he turns over and over to criminologist Frank Zimring.More
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Politics and History
Scholar and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore says when you put mass incarceration in a larger context, it's pretty clear — you don't solve a problem by repeating the kind of behavior that brought you the problem in the first place.More
It's common in literary and historical accounts of powerful women to make them out to be villains — witches, demons, succubi, changelings — or erase them entirely. Historian Kara Cooney, author Madeline Miller, Religious scholar Serenity Young, and classics scholar Emily Wilson talk about why that might be.More
College campuses have long been hotbeds of political activity, fervent debate and occasionally violence stemming from a war of words, but today, in this era of call outs and cancel culture, there is a renewed and controversial argument over free speech playing out at universities and colleges around the country.More
In 2010, then-LAPD Chief William Bratton asked civil rights attorney Connie Rice to investigate the biggest police corruption scandal in Los Angeles history, and to train 50 LAPD officers in what she calls "public trust policing."More
The high profile deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have raised all sorts of questions about racial profiling and the use of force by law enforcement. For writer Emily Bazelon, the debate has also raised an ethical question: When do you call the cops on an African American man?More
Journalist Alissa Quart thinks it's unfair when people's reputations are torn to shreds on Twitter for saying the wrong thing. She even wrote a poem about it.More
Famed novelist Kazuo Ishiguro recommends “Prayers for the Stolen,” by Jennifer Clement —a harrowing tale about young children who are abducted in the midst of Mexican drug wars.More
Singer/songwriter Tori Amos tells Steve Paulson that her new album, "The Beekeeper," is all about reclaiming representatives of the sacred feminine tradition who weren't afraid of their own sexuality.More
Producer Charles Monroe-Kane's son goes to a school with a 13.8% non-vaccination rate. So why aren't his neighbors vaccinating their kids? Charles went out searching for the answer.More
Cultural critic Stanley Crouch tells Steve Paulson that Americans have some pretty messed up ideas about what it means to be authentic.More
In 2008, journalist Anand Gopal travelled to Afghanistan to speak with civilians, warlords and Taliban fighters about the US-led war in the country. In his book, "No Good Men Among the Living," he argues the distinction between America's allies and enemies in the country isn't always clear.More
Why have some parents started second guessing their pediatrician’s advice, to the point that measles is showing up in Disneyland? Historian Arthur Allen explains how we got here.More
Tucker Malarkey has written a novel called "Resurrection" about the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in Egypt in 1945.More
Is the American criminal justice system perpetuating racial castes? Civil rights attorney and activist Michelle Alexander breaks down the systemic racism inherent to our justice system.More
Everyone's afraid of something. Here's a small sampling of fears from Question Bridge: Black Males, a transmedia project that fosters dialogue between African American men of diverse backgrounds.More
Laura Waterman is the author of a memoir called "Losing the Garden: The Story of A Marriage." The book explores how Laura could have permitted her beloved husband of thirty years to kill himself while suffering a profound depression.More
Listener Bill Lowman's Dangerous Idea? Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) need to be one of the lead agencies to define and defend African humanity.More