Trust but Verify

I'm watching world events and thinking of children.  I'm thinking that everyone in a position of authority should be treated the way parents treat teenagers: trust but verify.  People, after all, have an innate desire to serve their own interests, and must constantly be reminded of the needs of others.

If you don't remind your teenagers that you need them to be awake by ten o'clock on Saturday because you have to leave the house, they won't be.  If you don't remind your little ones to clean up their toys, they will not.  This is natural.  Sleep is good.  Cleaning up toys is bad.  It makes sense.

Why don't we apply these principles to people in positions of authority, or even just to adults?  Your employer gets it.  That's why we have time clocks.  We expect you to work a full 8 hour day, but we keep track just in case.  The government gets it.  That's why they require your employer to report your federal withholding.  We expect you to correctly report your own earnings, but we keep track just in case.  Your creditors get it.  That's why we have late fees.  We expect you to pay your bills on time, but late fees mean that doing so is serving your own interest as well as that of your creditor.

Now consider some of the problems experienced by law enforcement, educators, elected officials, religious leaders, and even coaches in athletics.  Some of the most troubling issues we face as a society today revolve around the basic responsibilities of people in these positions, things that we trust them to do, but can't verify.

Some of these problems seem to have simple solutions: if Darren Wilson had been wearing a body camera, it would have been easy to verify his version of events.

Others less so: how do we ensure that politicians are not beholden to some party other than their constituents?

In all cases, it seems to be in everyone's interest to put systems in place to verify the most critical performance metrics of the people in authority.  If we had some way to know that our police were not using more force that necessary, we would have fewer complaints of such.  Some reduction would come because we could quickly separate truth from lies.  Additional reduction would come because, monitoring performance improves performance.  If we had some way of accurately measuring the performance of educators, that performance would improve as well.  If priests and altar boys were never alone together, there would never be a need to wonder about abuse.

And that last case brings me to my conclusion.  It can be difficult and uncomfortable to be held accountable to others, but not as difficult and uncomfortable as being accused of wrongdoing by others.  So the obvious question is, why aren't the people in positions of authority leading the charge for greater accountability?  It certainly would advance their own interest.