Recruiting the Public Through Court User Surveys
The Kansas City team utilized court user surveys to identify concerns and experiences of Kansas City Municipal Court users and invite these members of the public to the community engagement sessions.
- The Kansas City team convened a steering committee with project partners to plan distribution of the survey.
- The team distributed English and Spanish surveys among all court users for an entire week. The surveys contained a variety of questions, including some questions from the CourTools Trial Court performance measures on access and fairness developed by the National Center for State Courts.
- The team distributed surveys to all people who had business at the municipal court during the week which the survey was conducted. Survey respondents included hearing participants, defendants from jail, and people paying tickets and seeking court records.
- An optional contact form was included with the surveys for people to sign up for the engagement. The team generated an engagement session contact information list from these forms to keep track of prospective participants.
- Survey participants received a restaurant coupon, candy, and a small gift (a miniature gavel) to complete and return their court user survey.
