February 6, 2025
Research has shown that reminders significantly reduce failure to appear in court. “Court Date Reminders Reduce Court Nonappearances: A Meta-analysis” evaluates court reminder programs to determine the effectiveness of such programs and discusses reminder format, frequency, and the information included in the reminder. It concludes that reminders make a dramatic difference for people who could face profound consequences by missing their court appearance.
A recent Vera Institute of Justice report states that in most cases, people fail to appear in court for understandable reasons, such as a lack of transportation or childcare or the inability to miss work. Courts can apply easy and cost-effective solutions like phone calls, allowance for walk-ins, easier rescheduling, and even night court.
The study Court Date Notifications: A Summary of the Research and Best Practices for Building Effective Reminder Systems similarly asserts the primary reasons why individuals fail to appear at their court dates. Court reminders may improve perceptions of procedural justice and fairness by avoiding jail time or other harmful consequences. The study identified four key lessons for implementing court date notification systems:
- The quality of the contact information used to provide court date notifications is critical to the success of a court date reminder program.
- Young people may benefit the most from text reminders.
- An agency should investigate notification effectiveness by getting the percentage of notifications successfully delivered.
- Implement procedural justice improvements that make it easier to participate and feel heard to build trust in the court system. Those that do not trust the court are unlikely to participate in their case.
The Macomb County (MI) Prosecutor’s Office is also using text messages to send court-hearing reminders to help crime victims get notifications and information about their cases. “Within 24 hours of a district court clerk scheduling a new court hearing, . . . victims receive a text notice of upcoming preliminary examination hearings and trials and an AI-generated video explaining that hearing.”
The NCSC eReminders Tool kit has more information to develop a reminder system. It provides an overview of the systems available that can meet your court’s needs. Visit us for more appearance rate resources.
Is your court sending reminders to court users? Share your experiences with us. Email us at Knowledge@ncsc.org or call 800-616-6164 and let us know. Follow the National Center for State Courts on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Vimeo. For more Trending Topics posts, visit ncsc.org/trendingtopics and subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter.