To forget is human. To remind, simple
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COMMENTARY | Text reminders of court appearances can save governments money, and prevent millions from missing their dates and being left facing an arrest warrant, or even jail time.
It's 10 a.m. on a Monday, and as you're looking at your calendar for the first time that week, you realize you missed your dentist appointment. You wanted to go and had written it down, but it completely slipped your mind. You might feel bad about missing, and now you have to spend time and energy rescheduling.
Missing an occasional appointment happens to most of us. Businesses know this. They understand that lives are busy, that texts are easy to see, and that the times of doctor appointments or oil changes often get missed within people’s busy lives. That’s why businesses regularly text or email reminders to help ensure you’ll remember and show up for your appointments with them.
Wouldn’t it be helpful if the government followed business’ lead and sent you reminders for your appointments? Especially when missing that appointment could result in an arrest warrant and leave you facing jail time?
Every year, millions of people across the country miss their court appearances and shoulder the snowballing consequences. This creates unnecessary problems for each of those individuals, as well as the courts, police, jails and taxpayers.
In some communities across the United States, missed court appearances are the number one reason people are booked into jail. Often, these are for lower-level offenses, such as traffic and other misdemeanors. And in many cases, they miss court not because they intended to, but because they simply forgot.
Research from the Crime and Justice Institute shows that the most common reasons people miss court are that they forgot, weren't aware they had a court date, or lacked transportation. Yet regardless of the reason, when people don't show up, courts often issue arrest warrants. This transforms many people’s forgetting into a criminal activity, without their even realizing it, in ways that can derail their lives. When that happens, everybody loses.
Yet those losses are eminently preventable. Text reminders can make the court system run more efficiently. Based on data from more than 15 sources, we estimate it costs governments nearly $1,500 for every missed court appearance that results in a warrant, and that each individual who misses their court date is set back an average of $1,350 in fines, lost wages and benefits.
This happens far more often than almost anybody realizes. In recent years, numerous studies have investigated why people miss court. The good news is that research has shown that court date reminders decrease missed court appearances by 20% to 40%. Research also shows that court reminders cost roughly $1 per case, compared to $2,580 in combined costs for each missed court date, making prevention a tiny fraction of what it costs not to use reminders.
On a practical level, decreasing missed court appearances helps keep our courts from becoming clogged, spares our overstretched law enforcement and corrections workers, and enables the entire system to allocate less time and energy to those who have forgotten their court appointments. Instead, it allows the system to focus on those who present an actual threat to public safety.
Several jurisdictions have already implemented reminder systems and seen dramatic improvements. In New York City, a text message reminder program reduced missed appearances by 26%. In Nebraska, reminders decreased missed court dates by 34%.
Simple reminders help people who never intended to miss their court dates. It means they don’t have to suffer the disruption and stress of an arrest warrant, not to mention the serious financial costs they’ll incur. Employers have a broader and more reliable talent pool, county commissioners have more funds available to address more serious concerns, and taxpayer dollars can simply be put to better use. It’s a win-win-win for all.
When people say the government should run like a business, they mean it should respect you, your time, and your resources. Our government needs to work for the people it serves, and this is one proven way to prevent an avoidable problem and make justice work better for taxpayers, courts themselves, and communities at large, because justice shouldn't hinge on whether someone remembered an appointment.
Forgetting is human. Reminders work. Let’s do what works.
Bridgette Gray is CEO of ideas42. Stephen Saloom is policy director for the (Un)warranted initiative at ideas42.