A Fair and Just Criminal Justice System?

Every year, people around the world get drawn deeper into the criminal justice system because they cannot navigate the complexity of behaviors required. So much policy, especially in countries such as the US, is focused on threatening people with negative consequences if they do not show the desired behavior. Therefore, misunderstanding and miscommunication of information lead to further punishment and an increasing sense of disenfranchisement from society.

Fishbane, Ouss, and Shah (2020) investigated the impact of behavioral nudges on reducing failures to appear in court. The researchers conducted two large-scale field studies in New York City and evaluated the effect of text message reminders to defendants to appear. In the first study, the text messages reduced the failure to appear by 13%. In the second study, the reduction was even more impressive, leading to a 21% reduction.

It is a profoundly simple way to address blatant discrimination in the justice system. Many with outstanding warrants live in poor neighborhoods with limited access to mail. Consequently, they may never have received the summons in the first place. A practical solution, sending them a text message, allows them to interact with the justice system in the first stage and avoid more dire consequences.

Sometimes academic research can throw a little common sense into the practice of the law.

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