Automated Reminders Reduce Incarceration for Missed Court Dates: Evidence from a Text Message Experiment

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that automated text message reminders significantly decrease warrants and incarcerations resulting from missed court dates, thereby improving legal compliance.

Contribution

It provides rigorous evidence that automated reminders effectively reduce warrants and incarcerations for missed court appearances in a real-world setting.

Findings

Warrants issued decreased by 20% with reminders.

Incarceration rates dropped from 6.2% to 4.8%.

Reminders improved court appearance compliance.

Abstract

Millions of Americans must attend mandatory court dates every year. To boost appearance rates, jurisdictions nationwide are increasingly turning to automated reminders, but previous research offers mixed evidence on their effectiveness. In partnership with the Santa Clara County Public Defender Office, we randomly assigned 5,709 public defender clients to either receive automated text message reminders (treatment) or not receive reminders (control). We found that reminders reduced warrants issued for missed court dates by approximately 20%, with 12.1% of clients in the control condition issued a warrant compared to 9.7% of clients in the treatment condition. We further found that incarceration from missed court dates dropped by a similar amount, from 6.2% in the control condition to 4.8% in the treatment condition. Our results provide evidence that automated reminders can help people avoid the negative consequences of missing court.