Webinars and Tiny Chats
NCSC hosts webinars with information on how courts can improve appearance rates by reducing barriers to appearance, and how courts can limit the harmful consequences of nonappearance.
Past webinars:
- Thinking About Showing Up: Brainstorming Ways to Eliminate Barriers to Appearance (October 2022 - not recorded)
- Low-cost ways to increase court appearances (September 2022)
- How Michigan’s Review of its Jail Population led to New Laws on Warrants and Driver’s License Suspensions (September 2022)
- The big picture: why appearance rates matter (August 2022)
- Promoting court appearance with procedural fairness (August 2022)
- Failure-to-appear rates: potential consequences, promising strategies (March 2022)
NCSC produces Tiny Chats: bite-sized annotated videos that touch on specific access to justice topics and court operations. These Tiny Chats cover topics related to making court more accessible.
NCSC Resources
NCSC prepared these resources to help courts administer remote hearings in ways that preserve critical rights and ensure courts run efficiently.
Visit NCSC's Virtual Remote Interpretation resource center.
Other Resources
These resources highlight innovations courts around the country have implemented to make court more accessible and best practices for ensuring people appear in court.
National Guide to Improving Court Appearances (ideas42, 2023)
Court Date Notifications: A Summary of the Research and Best Practices for Building Effective Reminder Systems (NYC Criminal Justice Agency, 2021)
Findings and Policy Solutions from New Hanover, Orange, and Robeson Counties (North Carolina Court Appearance Project, 2022)
Using Behavioral Science to Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes: Preventing Failures to Appear in Court (ideas42 & Crime Lab), and Behavioral Nudges Reduce Failure to Appear for Court
Using Reminders to Reduce Failure to Appear in Court (Minnesota Judicial Branch, 2019)
Removing barriers to pretrial appearances (Urban Institute, 2020)
Tips for good texts (Stanford Legal Design Lab)
Research on the Effectiveness of Pretrial Support and Supervision Services: A Guide for Pretrial Services Programs (UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab, 2021)
A Framework for Pretrial Justice: Essential Elements of an Effective Pretrial System and Agency (National Institute of Corrections)
Creating an Effective Pretrial Program (Community Resources for Justice – Crime & Justice Institute)
Pretrial Justice: How to Maximize Public Safety, Court Appearance, and Release (videos) (National Institute of Corrections)
Measuring What Matters: Outcome and Performance Measures for the Pretrial Services Field (National Institute of Corrections)
Procedural Justice Bench Card (American Judges’ Ass’n, CCI, NCSC, & Nat’l Judicial College)
The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention Revisited (2022) and The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention (Arnold Ventures, 2013)
Integrating criminal justice and behavioral health data (CSG Justice Center)
Websites
Coronavirus and the Courts (CCJ/COSCA Rapid Response Team Pandemic Response)
National Partnership for Pretrial Justice
Racial Justice (NCSC's work on racial justice initiatives)
Appearance Rate Technical Assistance
The National Center for State Courts is offering technical assistance to help improve court appearance rates and reduce harmful responses to nonappearance. With generous support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, NCSC selected six jurisdictions to participate in this project. Participating jurisdictions will work closely with NCSC staff and experts for one year to identify and reduce barriers to court appearance and provide more supportive structures to address a missed appearance. This technical assistance is provided at no cost to participating courts, and includes funding for stakeholders from the sites to join us for a summit in spring 2023. News from the summit.
The courts selected to participate in this technical assistance opportunity were:
- Richmond County State Court, Georgia
- Buckeye Municipal Court, Buckeye, Arizona
- Tenth Judicial Circuit District Court, Jefferson County, Alabama
- The 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri—Kansas City Municipal Division
- La Crosse County Circuit Court, La Crosse County, Wisconsin
- Lincoln County District Court, Lincoln County, Washington