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The research
Do text reminders reduce missed court dates?
Yes. Randomized trials in California, New York City, and elsewhere found that simple automated texts reduce failures to appear and bench warrants, and keep people out of jail. Here's what the studies found.
Santa Clara County public defender clients (2025)
Researchers from Harvard, Stanford, and NYU worked with the Santa Clara County Public Defender Office in California. They randomly split 5,709 clients into two groups: one received automated court date texts and one did not. Reminders went out 7, 3, and 1 days before each court date, and clients were asked to reply to confirm.
fewer bench warrants
12.1% of clients without reminders had a bench warrant at their next court date, compared with 9.7% of clients who got texts.
fewer jailed for a missed date
Clients remanded to custody on a bench warrant fell from 6.6% to 5.2%.
warrant rate among those who confirmed
Versus 16.8% for clients who didn't reply. The authors note this gap may partly reflect who chooses to reply.
Chohlas-Wood, Coots, Nudell, Nyarko, Brunskill, Rogers & Goel, "Automated reminders reduce incarceration for missed court dates: Evidence from a text message experiment," Science Advances 11(40), October 2025. Read the study.
New York City summons recipients (2020)
In a pair of field experiments with people who received summonses for low-level offenses, researchers first redesigned the summons form to make the court date and location easier to find, then added text message reminders. The redesigned form reduced failures to appear by 13%. Adding text reminders reduced them by 21% on average; J-PAL's summary reports reductions of up to 26% for text reminders. The authors estimate the changes led to tens of thousands fewer arrest warrants over three years.
Fishbane, Ouss & Shah, "Behavioral nudges reduce failure to appear for court," Science 370(6517), 2020. J-PAL summary.
Traffic and misdemeanor court reminders
A randomized evaluation in a large U.S. county court system sent three text reminders (two weeks, one week, and one day before court) to people with traffic, general sessions, and misdemeanor cases. Both the text-only group and a group that could also text questions to court staff had failure-to-appear rates more than 8 percentage points lower than the group that got no reminder, and bench warrants fell by about 16%.
Emanuel & Ho, "Behavioral Biases and Legal Compliance: A Field Experiment," working paper, 2020. J-PAL summary.
Across many studies
A meta-analysis of 12 studies of court date reminders found that reminders significantly reduce the odds of failing to appear.
Zottola, Crozier, Ariturk & Desmarais, "Court date reminders reduce court nonappearance: A meta-analysis," Criminology & Public Policy, 2022.
What makes a reminder work
- More than one message. The Santa Clara County trial used 7, 3, and 1 day before. The behavioral design nonprofit ideas42 recommends multiple reminders on a similar schedule.
- Clear details. Date, time, courthouse address, and courtroom. Confusion about where and when is a common reason people miss court.
- A request to confirm. Asking for a reply gives the attorney a list of who hasn't responded.
- The client's language. The Santa Clara County messages were sent in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Questions
Do text message reminders reduce failures to appear?
Yes. Several randomized trials found that automated text reminders reduce missed court dates and the bench warrants that follow. A 2022 meta-analysis of 12 studies found that court date reminders significantly reduce the odds of failing to appear.
How many reminders should be sent, and when?
Multiple reminders work better than one. The Santa Clara County trial sent texts 7, 3, and 1 day before each court date, and the behavioral research group ideas42 recommends a similar schedule.
Why do people miss court?
Researchers studying these programs point to forgetting, confusion about the date or place, and everyday obstacles like work, child care, and transportation, more often than deliberate avoidance.
Summaries above are our own descriptions of published research. CourtRemind™ is not affiliated with the researchers or institutions named.
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