Reducing Courts' Failure to Appear Rate: A Procedural Justice Approach

This grant examines the impact of variation in court appearance reminder systems on perceived procedural justice and voluntary compliance/failure to appear (FTA) outcomes, which have implications for pretrial release monitoring and public safety. This propsective field experiment will first collect FTA outcomes for misdemeanor defendants in 7 Nebrasksa counties randomly assigned to 4 conditions: 1) no reminder; 2) mailed reminder; 3) mailed reminder with sanction warning; and 4) mailed reminder with procedural justice message. Next, data on perceptions of confidence in court and procedural justice will be collected via self-administered survey (mail and telephone) for samples of compliant vs. FTA defendants, and analyzed as FTA predictors. Cost benefit analyses will assess cost efficiences, and potential impact is greatest among racial/ethnical minorities who disproportionately represent FTAs.
ca/ncf