Automated Reminders Reduce Incarceration for Missed Court Dates: Evidence from a Text Message Experiment
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866929286259146752 |
|---|---|
| author | Chohlas-Wood, Alex Coots, Madison Nudell, Joe Nyarko, Julian Brunskill, Emma Rogers, Todd Goel, Sharad |
| author_facet | Chohlas-Wood, Alex Coots, Madison Nudell, Joe Nyarko, Julian Brunskill, Emma Rogers, Todd Goel, Sharad |
| contents | 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. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_12389 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Automated Reminders Reduce Incarceration for Missed Court Dates: Evidence from a Text Message Experiment Chohlas-Wood, Alex Coots, Madison Nudell, Joe Nyarko, Julian Brunskill, Emma Rogers, Todd Goel, Sharad Applications 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. |
| title | Automated Reminders Reduce Incarceration for Missed Court Dates: Evidence from a Text Message Experiment |
| topic | Applications |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.12389 |