Cooke, Diop, Fishbane, et al. (2018) on Failure to Appear in Court

Brice Cooke, Binta Zahra Diop, Alissa Fishbane, et al., “Using Behavioral Science to Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes: Preventing Failures to Appear in Court.” ideas42 and the University of Chicago Crime Lab, January 2018 [pdf].

• In NYC in 2014, about 41% of summons to appear in court for minor infractions went unheeded.

• Missed court hearings are costly to the court and to the defendants, who have a warrant issued for their arrest.

• But perhaps behavioral factors, not preferences, are at the root of many missed court dates; maybe people forget, or fail to plan to miss work, or don’t understand the consequences, or just aren’t paying adequate attention. (Court dates can be months after the offense.)

• Perhaps present bias leads to failures-to-appear (FTAs): the benefits of skipping a court date are immediate and the (uncertain) costs are in the possibly distant future.

• “Mental models” (such as the belief that minor offenses do not warrant a court appearance) and perceived social norms (a belief that most people don't show up at court for minor matters) might also lead to FTAs.

• The researchers redesigned the summons form, to: (1) increase the clarity of the message that the form constitutes a summons to court; (2) highlight date, time, location for the court appearance; and to (3) foreground the consequence (an arrest warrant) for failing to appear. 

• The researchers also instituted a series of text message reminders about the court date. Some reminders focus on consequences of a missed court date, and some on planning. The sample size for this intervention is about 20,000. 

• Both interventions are analyzed as randomized trials. 

• The new summons forms reduce FTAs by 13%. 

• The most effective text messages reduce FTAs by 26%; and, when a further text message is sent to those who miss their court dates, the end result is a 32% reduction in warrants issued. 

• The researchers estimate that the two interventions (redesigned form and text reminders), combined, could have reduced FTAs in 2014 by 20,000 to 31,000 or so. 

• Incidentally, text messages are really cheap to send, but most arrestees currently do not provide a cell phone number.

Sunstein (2018) on "Misconceptions About Nudges"

Cass R. Sunstein, “Misconceptions about Nudges.” Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy 2(1): 61-67, 2018.

• Professor Sunstein examines seven mistaken or misleading – but frequently voiced – complaints about nudges. 

• (1) “Nudges are an insult to human agency” But…compared to what?; how can the provision of information, for example, be such an insult?; try active choosing if defaults make you nervous – but people often prefer a default!

• (2) “Nudges are based on excessive trust in government” But…compared to what?; governments must nudge; nudges, by definition, have low “error” costs; the private sector engages in lots of nefarious nudging; nudges can (and should) be made transparent.

• (3) “Nudges are covert” But…aren’t GPS devices and warning labels transparent?; is this misconception based on concerns about randomized field experiments?; transparency doesn’t seem to undermine the effectiveness of nudges.

• (4) “Nudges are manipulative” But…how is a reminder manipulative?; maybe a graphic warning is a little manipulative, ok?; but in general, manipulation should be made of sterner stuff. 

• (5) “Nudges exploit behavioral biases” But…do GPS and other technologies that improve navigability exploit a bias in a nefarious way?; many nudges counteract behavioral biases, such as inertia; nonetheless, defaults might indeed work because of inertia.

• (6) “Nudges wrongly assume that people are irrational” But…well, let’s say boundedly rational; nudging is inevitable; we needn’t resolve every philosophical issue to make pragmatic progress. 

• (7) “Nudges work only at the margins; they cannot achieve a whole lot” But…millions of additional school meals consumed?; billions in increased savings?; sigh.