This episode originally aired on Aug. 18, 2026.
It’s no secret that 250 years later, we are still trying to define “liberty and justice for all,” the values at the foundation of America’s creation.
The dark parts of our nation’s history are charged with racism, corruption, police brutality, and inequality. Many of our institutions are still shaped by the same history.
On a national level, a president who avoided punishment for his felony convictions, hundreds of unwarranted ICE arrests with no investigation, and more than 3 million pages of incriminating information against our nation's wealthiest with no arrests to date.
Now more than ever, accountability seems to be different depending on your racial, political, or economic status.
But this lack of accountability doesn’t stop at the federal level. It trickles down into our local institutions.
We're talking about the topic on this hour of All Sides.
Guests:
- Jillian Snider, adjunct lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
- Sarah Chayes, author, On Corruption in America, former NPR reporter
- Kyle Strickland, attorney, former CCPRB member
- Daniel Weiner, senior director, Brennan Center’s Elections & Government Program
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. 250 years later, we're still trying to define liberty and justice for all, the values at the foundation of America's creation. Despite our complex judicial system, our president has avoided punishment for his felony convictions. Hundreds of unwarranted ICE arrests went with no investigation and more than 3 million pages of incriminating information against our nation's wealthiest with no arrests to date. So it begs the question, What has happened to accountability? Joining us to talk about how the lack of accountability has historically and currently affected our federal government is Jillian Snider, adjunct lecturer to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Welcome to the show, Jillian. How are you? And also with us is Sarah Chayes, former NPR reporter and author of the book "On Corruption in America and What is at Stake?" Welcome to All Sides, Sarah. Thank you. So Jillian, I wanted to start with you. You've worked in law enforcement and you have a strong background in the justice system. Do you think it's true that accountability depends on your racial, political, or economic status?
Jillian Snider: That's a loaded question. It shouldn't, that's the point. It should not. Obviously I spent my career in law enforcement before I joined the R Street Institute and John Jay College, but what my job was was to hold people who broke the law accountable on top of getting justice for victims. The way in which the criminal justice system operates is not ideal. I think everyone can agree with that, but the point is that accountability should be a foundation of the criminal justice system, regardless of who you are, how much money you have, who you know.
Juravich: Sarah, you define corruption in your book as an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private sector interests, and out and out criminals interweave. So talk to us about how crime intersects with corruption.
Sarah Chayes: It's such a difficult question because what you just asked Jillian had to do with the identity of the suspect. There's also the type of crime. I remember having a long ongoing conversation with the former police chief out West. And he said, I really focused on the kind of crime that affected people in their everyday lives. And I said, but what about the crash of 2008? We had as many suicides as there were deaths in 9-11. We had broken families, we had, you know. And so I find that unfortunately, our criminal justice system, which is largely shaped by these networks, pays more attention to the types of crimes that are committed by, if you will, ordinary people, and is quite blind. To the operating system of the sophisticated network, which I can get into a bit more later.
Juravich: Well, and Sarah, can you give us maybe, you just gave an example out of American history where this plays out, because then you used the crash of 2008 as an example. Can you give me another example of a time in history where you see crime intersecting with corruption?
Chayes: I mean, I think... "On Corruption in America" focuses somewhat on what is called the Gilded Age and much more than I had intended the book to largely because I was just stunned at the parallels with today. And, you know, there you have a Likely bootlegger John F. Kennedy's father, who is also becomes the US ambassador to England and then is trying to get US gold. Given to the Nazis in the lead up to World War II. That's one example. So you can have, and I think another really important example from that period is where the lawyer representing railroad companies became the attorney general. So you have these sort of massive conflicts of what we call conflicts of interest. But in fact, this is the operating system of the network is that they have individuals, it's not an individual who's pushing a revolving door, it's the network that is placing its personnel in the private sector, in the public sector, occasionally in the criminal sector, so that they're working together to bend and repurpose the instruments of state power, including the justice system. To serve network members and to the detriment of the public at large. And this isn't necessarily a kind of smoke-filled room spelled out conspiracy. It's almost an unspoken way of functioning.
Juravich: Jillian, I wanted to ask you about our president as an example was convicted of 88 charges and as of July he had been found guilty of 34 criminal counts and 52 charges were dismissed. Can you help us make sense of this? You know, how does someone get 52 charges dismissed? Can you give us some more details on that?
Snider: Lawyers, I mean, and money buys good lawyers. And we see that across the board in the criminal justice system. If I used to work in the Bronx, and I could lock someone up for, you know, low quantity drugs. They would spend, you know, eight months sitting in jail, awaiting, you know, a determination of what's going to happen to them next. But like there was someone else who has the money to bail themselves out or to hire a fancy lawyer and they're out the same day. So I think a lot of this boils down to not only who you are, but how much money you can invest in your own criminal defense.
Juravich: No, the administration. Yeah, go ahead, Sarah. Yeah.
Chayes: Can I just chime in here? It's the money and sometimes it's not just transactional. So you made a reference to, meaning it's just the purchase of services. You made a references, I think, to Jeffrey Epstein. Was that who you were referring to earlier when you said?
Juravich: In the introduction, I was talking about three million pages of incriminating information against the wealthiest. Yes, yes.
Chayes: So he famously was given an extremely light sentence when he was first picked up on basically sex trafficking charges. And. One way of understanding what happened there is that he had the money for expensive lawyers, which he did. Then if you looked at the personalities of those lawyers, it turns out that they had all been in the same law firm with Acosta, who at the time was the US attorney for that district of Florida. So in fact, you had a bunch of buddies who were on both sides of the case. And that's, again, the network and operations. So sometimes. It is these network relationships. Other times it's money and very often those two intersect.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how the lack of accountability has historically and currently affected our federal government. We're taking with Gillian Snyder, adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Sarah Chayes, former NPR reporter and author. Gillian, the administration says everyone is out to get the president, calling it a witch hunt. Do you think these charges that I mentioned, getting 52 charges dismissed, still having 34 more charges? Do you think that this would all be different if he was not the president?
Snider: To some extent, I mean, when you become the President of the United States, everyone knows who you are and those people that don't like you, I don't want to say you're out to get you, please don't take it that way, but when you are drawing that much attention to yourself, you know, things that you've done, things you are currently doing are going to catch people's attention and they're going to want accountability. If there was no accountability, charges would have never come forward or been brought against him. So there is a level there that charges were brought. But I do think that with the way that we've become so polarized in the last couple, I don't want to say last couple of years, but more so in the last couple years, those on one side of the aisle want charges brought. Those on the other side of aisle, and as Sarah said, within that network, who knows each other, who has money and power, they would prefer no charges to be brought.
Juravich: Yeah, Sarah, that's interesting to think about it that way, is there is some accountability because charges exist, right, even though we feel like he has the best of the best lawyers and can get 52 charges dropped. Sarah, talk to me about the idea where just the charges existing is some sort of accountability.
Chayes: I'm, yes, I mean, it is possible here and it's not possible in Russia, for example, but is that our standard in the United States of America? So I just I still have a problem and as Jillian points out the polarization makes it quite difficult to have these cases move forward in a in an objective fashion or even have the words used. I think you could poll Americans and across the board, they would say corruption is one of the major problems in the US government. But instead of being able to stand back and candidly look at all sides and say, you know what, this is pretty structurally corrupt. And our party engages in a business model that is not really acceptable, shouldn't be acceptable in this country. Every you know the more convenient way of understanding what's going on is oh they're corrupt over there you know so corruption charges only have resonance for people when they're being applied to the other party and we're never going to get out of the situation we're in so long as that's the case.
Juravich: Jillian, I wanted to pivot and ask you about law enforcement, because some people feel like law enforcement is also held to a different standard. Across the nation, we see hundreds of ICE arrests, and some people say that the federal officers are using their own playbook whenever they're making these arrests. Many of the cases end up dismissed. Can you talk to us about the accountability in law enforcement? Where are we lacking? Where is it still there?
Snider: I mean, I worked in local law enforcement for a major city and you could rest assured that we had a high level of accountability in New York City. I think that there's structural differences between federal law enforcement agents, which what you're talking about right now. First of all, they're doing jobs right now that mission and objective wise, they hadn't always been trained to do. You never seen ICE agents run through the streets the way they are now. Again, this is coming orders from above and as a retired law enforcement, you do what your supervisor tells you to do. So I kind of feel sorry for some of the the agents out there because they are doing the job that they were told to do, so I think that's important to mention, but I think more importantly, the training that they're getting is not equipping them for the types of interactions they're going to have. Both ICE and CBP are very different from your traditional state and local law enforcement. And how they're being put out into the streets, I just don't think is the ideal way. And on top of it, I think that for the general public, who doesn't necessarily make the distinction between, oh, this isn't an ICE agent versus this is a local cop in my community. It's conflating the two, which is now giving us even more. I want to say challenges because they're not as cooperative with local law enforcement. And those are the sworn officers in your community when you pick up the phone and call 911, they're coming to help. And I think it's scaring people into not wanting to report victimization, not wanting to be cooperating on witnesses. So I do see this as problematic. I get it. Federal agents have a job to do. But I think training, I'm very disappointed that we do not have every federal agent equipped with a body worn camera at this point. That to me is just outrageous, particularly with in light of this week's announcement of the $20 million investment in the electric gloves, which I didn't interview the other day on those. And I was like, if we have $20 million for those gloves. Why aren't we giving every agent that's out in the field a body-worn camera? At least that gives another layer of accountability out there. So I see it as a challenge but I do see it as a training problem too.
Juravich: Yeah. And Sarah, that's also interesting in that it's all playing out in social media or in real time. I mean, everyone is seeing this all happening whenever it comes to ICE agents and their local police. Everyone has a camera on everyone now. Can you talk about how that experience of accountability versus corruption and law enforcement differs from, you know, decades ago? Like you talk, about the Gilded Age, there wouldn't have been 30 cell phones with 30 different angles on every interaction.
Chayes: It's absolutely fascinating because what I see going on, in terms of the pattern of how a force like ICE is being constituted and deployed, that's a pattern I've seen again in the Gilded Age, but also around the world, because I've done a lot of work on corruption in foreign countries. And what I've, as kind of comparing these networks, what I'm seeing is that they all, so first of all, they all try to capture the justice. The justice arm, I want to say, they need to be able to control who gets punished and who doesn't. And it's almost always the case. And then almost every one of these networks that I've looked at closely controls an informal, formal, informal instrument of force. And so in Egypt, for example, during the Arab Spring of 2011, and there were these thugs who came. You know, on camels beating people up where they were gathered in the main square of Cairo. There are what are called area boys in Nigeria at elections that often, you know apply force. And there are in Honduras, I saw mixed units of police and army, but who were responding very directly to the president of the country. And so. To me, ICE is a kind of nascent example of this same thing, which is a semi-formal, not trained to proper standards, instrument of force that operates at the behest of the kind of pinnacle of the network in this country, which is President Trump. But as you point out to Amy, the fact of the visibility of this, and ordinary people's reactivity against it is proving the establishment of ICE to serve a role like that, to be much, much more challenging, I think, than President Trump imagined.
Juravich: Unfortunately, we're running short on time. And in our next segment, we are going to talk locally. We're going to take it from the federal level to local government here in Columbus. And Jillian, I wanted to ask you. Here in Columbus, we have a Civilian Police Review Board. We are going talk with one of the members who is one of an inaugural member of it. Their influence has been small, but it's a start. Do you think these measures, something like that, is effective? Do we need larger reforms? Or can we start with a review board that arguably has too many members?
Snider: I was just in Columbus, actually. I want to say it's a very nice city to be in, but I do think that review boards are important. I've actually testified at state legislature to enact civilian complaint review board style things because I think there needs to be that external accountability. You could have at the top executives saying that we're holding each other accountable, and I do think to some extent they do try. But again, culturally, it's very hard to hold your friend, your colleague, your partner accountable. And that's where I think that these civilian boards or community members that come together and try and have some level of external accountability, but importantly, working in conjunction and collaboration with the executives of that law enforcement agency I I think is the most important part because if you feel like you're in direct conflict, take the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, our executives and the CCRB of New York city historically have never really gotten along. We saw them as a punisher. And, but they, there's merit there because we need that from an external point of view. And especially at the local level.
Juravich: And Sarah, just for you to end on, you know, how can someone listening to this feel like they can fight back against corruption? Do you know do they need to join the Civilian Police Review Board? Do they need to do it locally? Big picture federally? What would you tell someone?
Chayes: All of the above. But really it's about not rolling your eyes and walking past it. It's about, and I guess what I would like to end on is to say, who can we really influence? We can influence our own communities. And so to me, what's really important is that all of us think about how can we hold our own community, be it our political party, be it family, be it workplace, be... Whatever, our gender, up to our highest standards. That's where I think people need to start.
Juravich: We've been talking about the lack of accountability historically and currently, and how it's impacted our federal government. We've be talking with Gillian Snyder, adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Thank you for your time, Gillian. Thank you so much, Amy. And also Sarah Chayes, former NPR reporter and author of the book on corruption in America. Sarah, thanks for joining us.
Chayes: Thank you so much for having both of us.
Juravich: And coming up, we're going to talk with a local attorney about lack of accountability here in central Ohio. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Our nation has always been prideful for its liberty and justice for all. But it's no secret that many of our institutions are far from it. Now more than ever, accountability seems to be different depending on your racial, political, or economic status. But this lack of accountability doesn't stop at the federal level. It trickles down to our local institutions. We're talking about accountability structures, or the lack thereof in central Ohio. And joining us now is attorney and deputy director of the Ohio Progressive Collaborative, Kyle Strickland. He was also an inaugural member of the Columbus Civilian Police Review Board. Welcome to all sides, Kyle. Thanks for having me, Amy. So you're an attorney here in Columbus. Your job has a lot to do with accountability. You have a lot of experience in this area. What are some of the differences that you've witnessed in when it comes to enforcing accountability? For different demographics in the city.
Kyle Strickland: Well, that opening just tells the story, which is that depending on your background, your proximity to power, your connections, that has an impact on whether or not we will see accountability. And what we've seen far too often in our country, in our society, is that the wealthy and well-connected often can skirt accountability while those, many of the rest of our communities are seeking that level of accountability for those in power. And so. The questions are, regardless of the role that I've seen, whether it's through my work previously at the Kerwin Institute, or the work that I have done at the Roosevelt Institute, where I looked at economic policy. There's a lot of questions that people have about what is possible in terms of this question of liberty and justice for all, when the reality is that's the case for some. And so we have to have institutions that can hold all powers accountable, regardless of your background, regardless of connections. Unfortunately. The way in which it plays out in society is that if you're wealthy and well-connected, often you see them avoid any sort of accountability. And then that adds disillusionment and a distrust in the process because these institutions, which should be designed for all, only seem to serve the few. And so we've got to figure out more ways to address those issues so that all actors can be held accountable and responsive to their constituents.
Juravich: But, and where is this accountability structure lacking? I mean, are we talking about law enforcement? Are we talking about where you see things as an attorney or with the government? I mean local government, city hall, like where are we seeing a lack of accountability?
Strickland: I mean, it's all across the board. I mean I think you can look at, let's say for government, for example, we have in government and across the country, things like gerrymandering, which makes it very difficult to actually have citizens and representatives to hold their elected officials to account because effectively many of them are gonna get elected anyways, regardless of where their constituents feel on a set of issues. And so for example if you go and cast. Your ballot and it is not going to have an influence or an outcome on a particular election, then how is it possible that if you're an elected official, that you even need to feel accountable to the constituents you serve? We often talk about it, whether it's in our education systems. We often say, we want to make sure that every child should have a quality education regardless of zip code. Well, we know that your zip code is quite determinative of your life outcomes. It's quite determinative of your educational outcomes. And because so much of our funding and our school system is relying on property taxes, then what happens is you don't have that tax base. If you don't have that support, then many people don't get those same opportunities. So we have to figure out more ways to invest in institutions so that people actually practice and feel a sense of accountability, but also a sense of responsiveness. To their constituents and their communities.
Juravich: One way we're working for accountability is, you know, the law holds us as individuals as accountable, but there needs to be a way to hold those who enforce the law accountable too. So you are an inaugural member of what is called the Columbus Civilian Police Review Board, and you were there for five years. That's a long time. Tell us how this board works and why it was created.
Strickland: Of course, so this board was created in 2021. It was established through a ballot measure, a charter amendment in 2020, which was really, a lot of it was in response for many calls for many members of the community that were asking for more oversight, more accountability when it comes to our police, and especially in the midst of the summer of 2020, when we saw a reckoning with racial justice and a reckening with these issues. And so that was an inaugural step was to... Create and establish the civilian police review board to add additional independence, additional oversight and accountability to the process. And here's the thing, I served on that for five years, and it was a great opportunity, a great foundation to navigate the process to establish structures to actually build a more accountable system. But it has its flaws. And quite frankly, when we talk about any sort of government body, you run into bureaucracy, bureaucratic issues, and so the challenge is that these are systemic challenges, deep issues, and so just simply putting a review board together, that's only one part of the puzzle. You have to also look at policy change, cultural change, other sorts of issues, and that cannot just be one body that addresses that. You've got to make sure that other institutions are a part of that, and there were reforms that were made which were important. But I was under no illusion about the ability of the Civilian Police Review Board, whether it's in Columbus or across the country, to actually put in place the types of systems to get the long-term accountability that's required. And it's one step, it's on piece, but there are many other pieces to the puzzle.
Juravich: So do you feel like this board is just more, not to call you a talking head, but is it just a lot of people talking? Like was action taken? Do you feel things were affected?
Strickland: So I do think that action was taken. I think it is not the extent by which I would have liked to see in terms of the pace of progress, but it is, the reason that I understood that is that whenever you bring in a board of people with diverse viewpoints, diverse perspectives, and you have meetings, you deliberate over issues, and the way in which these boards are structured, it's often reactionary. You're looking at individual cases that come to you. And addressing individual cases, individual complaints, and it's much harder to then think about proactive ways to look at more systemic issues. So for example, looking at patterns and practices. One of the things that I was calling for from the very beginning and had called all the way until my term ended, which was of some sort of data dashboard to actually have that transparency made available for all residents of Columbus to be able to see and track individual cases and complaints that they had and then Would they be able to see patterns of sorts, the types of complaints, the types things that were happening, which areas and communities? The problem was that the technology to do that work, the political will to make that happen, it takes some time. There were some folks who were interested in doing that, but it was a question of priorities, a question resources, question of capacity. And to this day, they don't quite have that dashboard. I think they should get there, and I hope they get there. But it's not just on the review board. That's also. Other folks in the city that have to be a part of that. Law enforcement has to be part of it. There has to the will to do that. And it takes time to get there.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about accountability structures and the lack thereof in central Ohio. And we're talking with attorney and deputy director of the Ohio Progressive Collaborative, Kyle Strickland. So some people believe that the police in general have a long history of brutality, injustice. Others believe our government is not well-run and not everyone has a seat at the table. You mentioned that earlier about voting and gerrymandering. When injustice feels so deeply rooted in our institutions, I mean, do you think something like creating a civilian police review board, is that enough, or is it just something?
Strickland: It's certainly not enough. I mean, I think it is a start of the steps that need to happen. You need to have additional, you know, when it comes to accountability and law enforcement, for example, you need to have additional structures in place, so that you have independence, you have more transparency, greater transparency. But at the same time, these institutions, these these agencies that that folks create, they also have to be accessible and responsive to the community, right? So. The review board should be reflective of the community. And there are elements of that that exist, but the way in which these structures work is that they have meetings downtown and in the middle of the day, and sometimes those are not always easy to get to. Now, they have made strides in terms of having more events in the community or at community rec centers to make that more accessible and available to folks. But still, that requires somebody spending two hours out of their time to listen in on what's happening at. An individual meeting. And so it's one thing to create these systems, but you also have to make sure that we're doing everything we can to meet people where they are. And quite frankly, when you put these changes into institutions or into agencies, this policy takes time. And... People are frustrated because the the rate of change that needs to happen are not going to have an overnight and yet We need deep systemic reforms across the board And so what are the steps to to involve that to address that and one step is something like a civilian police review board But that's just one I think far more focus is also on government institutions and how we elect our representatives and how Have representatives that are responsible to people. That's one way to address some of these issues
Juravich: Let me give you an example just to try to wrap our heads around something. So recently a federal judge in Cincinnati ruled that ICE was making illegal immigration arrests in Ohio. But then she dismissed the case. So help us make sense of that. Like, where's the accountability structure whenever one ruling happens and then it just like disappears.
Strickland: Yeah, so I can't speak to the exact specifics of that case, but what I can say is that again, whether it's through the courts or whether it is through government institutions, there's a lot of things that happen when it comes to these issues. And what happens is things get gummed up in the work of bureaucracy. And you might have a flash point where a lot people are paying attention. I see this often with. Uh, whether it's issues with the civilian police review board or issues in terms of federal action and law enforcement, a lot of people are paying attention to a particular issue, but then when, uh, the news stories go away and everybody draws attention to something else, there's some other issue that comes to play. And then the question is, how are we engaging people on a local level to make sure that we're continuing to hold actor bad actors to account? And what does that look like? What are the avenues to do that? One way might be through the courts. Other way might be through. Uh, your representative, but it's also important throughout this process that you have community leaders, you have elected officials that are connecting with people and informing them of what's going on and what is happening because right now too often what we see happen is what we're seeing nationally is an assault on many of our institutions all at once and it's hard to to pay attention to all the things that are happening and so the question is how are we drawing attention to what role in which we as citizens can play in addressing and holding actors to account, but then also what role can these elected officials who are in positions of power do about these issues. And these are all steps that we have to take, but it requires many of us working together collectively to address some of these challenges. It requires media and journalists to be reporting on these stories consistently and then being able to tell that story over time.
Juravich: Well, speaking of something that's drawing attention at the moment, I wanted to talk about flock cameras a little bit. These are the surveillance cameras that are throughout the city. Police say that they're being used as a better way to catch criminals, but the public is really worried about privacy, and it's really captured the attention not just in Columbus. I mean, we're hearing about flock cameras all over the country. How do you feel about these cameras? I mean they seem like a good thing for accountability to have things videotaped everywhere, I guess. Where do you come down on the the flock camera debate right now? So my issue is the hyper surveillance that we see.
Strickland: The notion that you have these these flock cameras that are, you know, utilized through private companies and corporations that then enter into contracts with cities and law enforcement agencies to provide even if you know you can say you know there are a set of folks that say hey this is useful for helping stop crime what we have seen is all sorts of ways in which law enforcement and others have utilized these activities not in the way that they were supposedly intended to do and instead as a way to serve hyper surveil people and so For example, even a high-level example of this that I'll speak to on the Civilian Police Review Board, there was a past case where somebody used a flock camera system. They logged into the system to try to track down some other unrelated incidents, not for the purposes of the law enforcement activity that they were engaged in. That is a blatant abuse and violation in terms of their own personnel policies internally. And so. What I think is, you might have some folks who say, well, that's not how they're intended to use, there's policies in place. Well, clearly, if those policies can be abused in that way, and then the consequence just happens to be hyper-surveillance of communities, that's a problem. And so what I am seeing, and what I've loved to see, is everybody going to their city hall, talking to their mayor's office, asking about... What are you using these flock systems for? Is that really the hyper surveillance? Is that the best way in terms of deterring crime? Are there other avenues, are there other ways to address some of these issues and these concerns? And so we're seeing folks talk about these issues and also the notion that this hyper surveillance is being used to try to aid and abet federal law enforcement to go after communities through these immigration enforcement actions that we've also seen not being part of the policies and yet they've been used that way. And so I think it is another example of hyper surveillance. I understand the goal. You want to stop crime and you want to make sure that we're focused on public safety. But just implementing these cameras and having unaccountable contracts is not a way to keep people safe and it's certainly not a way to hold folks accountable.
Juravich: Well, we only have a couple of minutes left, but I wanted to pivot to one more thing, and it involves local government, since I have you here to represent kind of the local perspective. A lot of citizens want to make their voice heard, but here in Columbus, it seems to be like powerful people take the reins. You know, there's what's called the Columbus Partnership. It was founded by Les Wexner, Jack Kessler, and the late John F. Wolf. And a lot of people feel like organizations like this control everything, and it doesn't matter who you vote for, which you kind of mentioned earlier, right, like. If these powerful people with a lot of money, does that pose a threat to citizen representation? Like, what do you feel, is that legitimate? Do you think that the city really is, powerful people are pulling the strings? Well, if you look at our-
Strickland: Politics nationally, locally, and state, those at the very top often get the benefits of our political system. And so what this has created is a system in which people are disillusioned, of all political stripes and persuasions, they're disillusioned by the political process. And then even when you have politicians that come in and say that they're going to change things, oftentimes we see that they try to go in and they get stuck with bureaucracy, then they ask for patience and say, wait more time, we'll get them next time, we'll change it next time. Years go by and nothing changes. And so that's why people tune out. They might think, what is the point of me participating if it's only in support of the wealthy and the powerful? And I think what's important here is this, is that for communities to not lose sight of our agency, of our power, and quite frankly, especially when it comes to voting rights, especially when it come to the types of reforms that are needed, we need to continue to recognize our power. Recognize our voices, and that's why we've seen all sorts of organizing around ballot measures, which I think are really important, the ballot measures to change the way in which we do city council elections, as a perfect example. Ballot measures to address gerrymandering at the statewide level. These are ways in which we can address some of these big changes, but our political system is often tilt to big corporations and the wealthy. We've got to make sure we have more systems, more individuals who are focused on everyday people, and that means more electeds, but it also means getting ordinary people involved.
Juravich: Well, and just to try to end, you know, you got a little more optimistic there, right? Like to try and end on an optimistic note, how can someone listening regain their trust in maybe local government or just to feel like they can do something, they can help? What would you say to like the average person listening?
Strickland: Yeah, what I'll say is that there are often people who, in government, in positions of power, who don't want you to have a voice, who don't wants you to participate in the process. And if you're a disillusioned and don't trust the political process, I completely understand and agree with you. However, what i will say, if you have a government institution that is actually reflective of the community that is responsive to constituents, then you can have a tremendous amount of impact. You can change things like our educational policy. You can change things about... Accountability and what makes things possible. But that requires all of us working together in calling this out. It requires journalists, as I talked about earlier. It requires everyday people to show and recognize their own power. And we've got to vote. We've got make an impact. And that's possible even in the face of all of these disparities and challenges.
Juravich: We've been talking about accountability structures with attorney and deputy director of the Ohio Progressive Collaborative, Kyle Strickland. Thank you for your time today. Thanks so much for having me. And coming up, we're gonna talk about how the lack of government accountability can affect our day-to-day lives. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides, I'm your host Amy Juravich. Now more than ever, accountability seems to be different depending on your racial, political, and economic status. The powerful are off the hook and the underprivileged bear the brunt of our justice system. To the average working class American, witnessing injustice at every level, it only fosters more distrust toward our government and institutions. What happened to accountability? And what does its absence mean for us at the individual level? We're asking Daniel Weiner, the director of the Brennan Center's elections and government program, those questions, and he joins us now. Welcome to All Sides, Daniel.
Daniel Weiner: It's a pleasure to be with you.
Juravich: So recently the Brennan Center for Justice published an article and it was titled "How Corruption Affects Democracy." Can you tell us why this topic is relevant right now especially?
Weiner: Well, I think the first thing we need to start with is what do we mean by corruption, right? And the word gets used a lot, but I would say that when I'm talking about corruption, I mean the abuse of public office for private gain. You can have other definitions, but in public life, that's often what we mean. And I think what we have seen is that corruption can have a fairly profound impact on democracy, both in terms of loss of confidence in public institutions and, you know, a growing sense of polarization, right, is this the sense that the in group benefits from a corrupt system and the out group doesn't. And over the long term, I think that can have really, really corrosive effects on a political system. And we're starting to see that now. I think it's a time of real peril for the country, and it's something that we all need to pay attention to.
Juravich: The article mentions that even the mere perception of corruption impacts individual citizens. So can you give me some examples of this? What are the small effects that we might not notice, but like, I'm thinking of it's like, I just roll my eyes all the time when I see news. Right. Yeah.
Weiner: I mean, I think I think it is, you know, the sense of pervasive cynicism. So it is it is I do think corruption perceptions are incredibly important, because if you see people at the top who you feel are not following the rules that are supposed to apply for everyone, your question to yourself might be well, then why should I follow the rules? We see this in other countries where you do have sort of systemic problems with corruption, right? Where you might, for instance, need to bribe a police officer if you get pulled over or something like that. And it leads to a pervasive breakdown in the system of trust. We're not at that stage yet, certainly in the United States, but when you get a sense that the rules don't apply to everyone, whether it's in fact true or not, but if that is the perception, And it leaves. People don't wonder whether they should follow the rules and also whether they should have confidence in the public institutions to which, you know, that are supposed to wield authority in our society and, and, you know, ideally guarantee, um, you know, protection, security, and freedom for all of us.
Juravich: And the lack of accountability can lead to all sorts of corruption. The article that I'm referencing mentions that when corruption takes root, public goods are also affected. Can you tell us about the material way in which people are impacted here?
Weiner: Well, I think that there's a lot of research that suggests that pervasive corruption can sap public goods and sap public resources. And we see this in many states, right, where you see pervasive pay-to-play, for instance, which is the awarding government contracts to favored people based on their political spending. That means that public services get degraded. That means that, you know, people, frankly. Have less of an incentive to pay their taxes and to follow the law in that regard. So it can be, from a material perspective, incredibly corrosive. Again, we get back to this, even the perception, right, that public goods are being distributed on a corrupt basis or that not everyone is following the same rules. Can undermine confidence in the system and really lead people to feel that they don't have to play by the rules themselves, they don t have to pay their taxes, they don't have to follow the law, and it can spiral. And I think that's an important point too, which is this can tend to be kind of a one-way ratchet. So if people start to feel that way, they start to lose respect for institutions, it's very hard to unwind. That process. And I think that's what we're wrestling with right now is when you start to go down that road, how do you restore confidence in institutions? And actually, one way to do that is through even-handed accountability, which is a key part of this.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how the lack of accountability in our government affects us as individuals. And we're talking with Daniel Weiner, Senior Director of the Brennan Center's Elections and Government Program. I wanted to talk about voting for a minute because when citizens view, you know, powerful people getting pardons, there's loopholes, they don't think anyone's held accountable. Citizens are less inclined to vote. You know, my vote doesn't matter. This person's gonna get elected anyway. Can you talk to me about that cycle of, because also the cynical part of me is saying, well, obviously some of the people in government want lower voter turnout anyway. So talk to about the voting.
Weiner: Yeah, I mean, what I worry most about is when a culture of impunity leads people pervasively to just not vote because they think that ultimately their vote doesn't actually carry with it a fighting chance of making real change in the society. And to me, that is the biggest problem. Like, people may disagree with individual government decisions. They may dispute fairness, the fairness of certain decisions. But when you start to see people feel like their vote just doesn't matter because the powerful are going to do what they want anyway, that is incredibly dangerous. And that's why often, I mean, this is widely seen by scholars of democracy and corruption, having rules on the books that are either sporadically or not enforced is often just worse than having no rules at all, right? Because it breeds this culture of impunity. That leads political elites to think that they can get away with whatever they want and leads ordinary citizens to think there's no point to being invested in the democratic process. And of course, what I worry about incredibly is that that also breeds extremism, right? Is that if you don't think that ordinary democratic processes can help to vindicate your interests. You might start looking outside those processes. And we certainly see that happening in other countries. And, you know, hints of that sometimes in the United States. But to me, that is the ultimate risk is that people don't see democratic participation as an outlet for resolving their grievances and protecting their interests.
Juravich: Well, you mentioned a few minutes ago that people need to see that accountability is happening. They need to believe it, they need to understand it in order for things to get better. But how do we do that? I feel like I'm gonna be one of those people who is just like, no one's being held accountable for anything anymore.
Weiner: Right. I mean, this ultimately comes back right to questions around political culture. So oftentimes, when we start to talk about reform in this area, it can feel a little bit like a very technical conversation that, you know, maybe leaves a lot of us behind in terms of the, you know, the details of when can you buy a government official a cup of coffee or whatever. What the real question is though... Is how do you restore a political culture where public service is treated as a public trust and everybody plays by the same rules? And that's why for the Brennan Center, you know, when we talk about our advocacy, we focus on a few big things. You know, lawyers like to debate small rules, but for us, the load story is one. You need a system where everyone at the top plays by the same rules as the folks below them. So, you know, we should not have, for instance, the president be exempt from the ethics rules that apply to everyone else in the federal government. And two, you need even-handed robust enforcement of the rules that we decide should be on the books. And that is why a big thing is actually restoring. Anti-corruption enforcement in the federal government, making sure that the rules we do have are applied evenly. But I think ultimately that is what you sort of want people to engage on, and what you actually wanna build a movement around, not the minutia of these rules, but the basic principles. Public service is a public trust, and everyone plays by the same rules.
Juravich: We have just about a minute left. So you just said everyone needs to play by the same rules. We need to enforce the rules evenly. What can, end on a positive note here, what can an individual person do to help make sure that's happening?
Weiner: I love that question and you know it depends a little bit on your situation but I will say a couple things. One is if you are a politically engaged person tell your elected representatives at the state level you know there's a lot of stuff going on the state level that this matters to you that this should be a priority. I think too often people in power assume this is kind of a tertiary issue that no actually cares about and we need to dispel that notion. And second of all, you know, use your own voice. We live in an age now where everyone can be an influencer on social media, you now out in your channels with your community. Again, tell people that these issues matter, urge them to hold elected officials from both parties accountable. And you know a little bit, put your money where your mouth is, right? Like make this a priority in your engagement with public life. And I think that. It will go a long way to dispelling the conventional wisdom that these things just don't matter to ordinary voters because in fact, we know they do.
Juravich: We've been talking about how the lack of accountability in our government affects us as individuals. And we have been talking with Daniel Weiner, Director of the Brennan Center's Elections and Governments Program. Thank you so much for your time today, Daniel. It was a pleasure waiting with you. And you've been listening to you all sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.