Evaluating the Efficacy of the Palm Beach County’s Court Reminder Notification System

• In Event: Pretrial Supervision

Abstract

Over the last decade, Palm Beach County has implemented a range of strategies focused on safely and efficiently reducing the jail population. Among these initiatives was a court date reminder notification system launched in 2018 as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC). Court date reminder systems aid in reducing jail populations safely and efficiently by promoting court appearances among individuals released from jail pending the adjudication of their case. While previous research has indicated that court date reminder systems are efficient in reducing jail populations, the efficiency of the Palm Beach County court reminder notification system has yet to be evaluated. Using data provided by the Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission and a third-party vendor, we evaluate whether the court date reminder system has improved rates of court appearance, and whether these effects vary across different subgroups of defendants based on defendants’ charge type, criminal history, and sociodemographic factors (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, etc.). We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice, including the potential utility of court date reminders and other interventions that offer cost-effective strategies to address the underlying causes of defendant non-appearance.

Authors

• Abigail Galvan, Florida State University

• Jennifer E. Copp, Florida State University