By Frank W. Lewis

By Jennifer Doleac

Focusing on practical solutions for improving court attendance is key to reducing harm and using limited justice system resources better.

Riverdale has implemented a message reminder system to reduce the number of people whose lives are upended by missing a court date.

Our criminal legal system levies unduly harsh penalties for “failure to appear.”

• Every year, millions of Americans are required to appear in court for low-level offenses, but thousands fail to show up and are issued warrants for their arrest.

• It is often assumed that people who fail to appear in court do so purposefully, but new research challenges that belief.

• Studies suggest that simplifying citation forms and issuing reminders can keep thousands of citizens out of jail and save state and local governments significant amounts of money.

New national report can help local leaders get more people to show up.

Researchers Alissa Fishbane, Aurélie Ouss, and Anuj Shah worked with New York City government offices to develop a program to improve court appearance rates. The program, which involved both redesigned summons forms and texting defendants with reminders, prevented 30,000 arrest warrants for missed court appearances over a recent three-year period.

The researchers recommend that instead of increasing punitive measures, such as fines or jail time, for missed court appearances, policymakers should devise behavioral interventions to help defendants better comply with court summons.

Behavioral interventions or "nudges" that improve communication of critical court information may be more effective at improving court attendance for low-level criminal offenses than increasing threats of further punishment, according to a new study published in the October 9 issue of Science.

Redesigned ticket—and text message reminders—led to a 13% drop in missed court dates.

Behavioral “nudges” can prevent people from facing an arrest warrant for a missed court date.

A three-year collaboration researched the underlying behaviors associated with missing a court summons—and how to use behavioral science interventions to change those behaviors.

By re-thinking the look of a standard summons alone, the failure-to-appear rate for people who received the redesigned paperwork dropped by 13%.  Many of the tickets also collected cell phone numbers from the defendants, allowing the city to try some text interventions. Together, the new summons and text reminders caused a 36% drop in those skipping court.

Texting people reminders makes them more likely to show up for court, according to a pilot program in New York City.

After a pilot testing which messages work best, the city reports it has cut failure-to-appear rates by 26 percent.

New York City’s pilot program of texting reminders to people about upcoming court dates has been a success so far, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. 

Borrowing techniques from the advertising world, city officials consulted with behavioral economists who redesigned the tickets.