Automated Reminders Reduce Incarceration for Missed Court Dates: Evidence from a Text Message Experiment

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 5,706 public defender clients to either receive automated text message reminders (treatment) or not receive reminders (control). We found the 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 illustrate the promise of automated reminders to reduce the negative consequences of missing court.