Research shows helping able and vulnerable populations make their court date saves time, effort, and money dealing with the backlog.
While counties don’t run the courts, they fund a substantial portion of the operating costs and their administrative resources interact with them at almost every turn. The efficiency of the courts has a direct affect on the workload the supporting departments from the counties experience. In a newly released report by the behavioral science nonprofit Ideas42, practices and innovations that improve the rates of court appearances have a direct effect on time, energy, and money spent trying to get back on track when an individual doesn’t appear. According to The Pew Charitable Trust, of the dozens of practices that are research-backed or show promising results from the report, each was underpinned by at least one of the following four principles:
- make information clear, timely, and accessible
- reduce logistical challenges
- add flexibility
- provide useful resources
Check out both the Pew recap and full 94-page guide for an absolute treasure trove of data that will help streamline practices for both the county and state entities that come together to make the system work. Find detailed examples from court systems all over the country that have applied various strategies with encouraging results. Case studies determine exactly where court-ordered individuals are losing traction in the system. As previously covered on the Conduit Street Blog, various bills have come through the Maryland General Assembly with varying degrees of success but not making it all the way through. Lookout for the potential that these national insights could help move the needle on these initiatives in 2024.
