Around the country, courts are focused on improving appearance rates—to move cases forward efficiently, reduce warrants for nonappearance, and increase access to justice. To help courts discover and adopt effective approaches, the (Un)warranted team at ideas42 has crafted this four-part series breaking down leading research-based practices informed by behavioral science.
Read our previous installments on court date reminders and behaviorally designed court forms.
In this edition, we’re turning to a promising practice, rooted in behavioral science, that’s ripe for more courts to take up: grace periods following a nonappearance.
Think of the number of times you’ve missed an appointment or arrived late to a meeting despite your best intentions. Maybe you got stuck in traffic, or accidently overlooked the meeting among the many other events crowding your calendar. Usually, the consequences for these misses are minor—the small hassle of rescheduling. But court users who find themselves in these same situations often face steep fines and jail time that can upend their lives.
Grace periods are a simple idea: they recognize people often miss court because of simple human error or other factors beyond their control, and provide some cushion, or slack, to remedy the nonappearance. Specifically, people are given a certain amount of time to contact the court before a bench warrant is issued. That amount of time varies, and we recommend grace periods of 7-30 days in case people are managing illness or emergencies. A good rule of thumb: provide enough time for people to receive a notification (by text, email, or mail) on how to remedy the missed appearance and to follow up on it.
Implementing a grace period can cost little or nothing, and can often involve relatively simple changes to policy and procedure. In several states, grace periods already exist by statute that courts can expand or build upon.