Reducing Courts' Failure to Appear Rate: A Procedural Justice Approach [Nebraska Statewide, Select Counties, 2009-2010]

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of using different kinds of written reminders to reduce misdemeanants' failure to appear (FTA) rates. The study examined the problem of FTA via a two-stage experiment. In Phase 1, 7,865 misdemeanor defendants from 14 Nebraska counties were randomly assigned to one of four reminder conditions: (1) a no-reminder (control) condition; (2) a reminder-only condition; (3) a condition in which the reminder also made them aware of possible sanctions should they fail to appear (reminder-sanctions); or (4) a condition in which the reminder mentioned sanctions but also highlighted aspects of procedural justice (PJ), such as voice, neutrality, respect, and public interest (reminder-combined). Data collection began in March 2009 and continued through May 2010. Files were received daily from the Nebraska Administrative Office of the Courts containing information about cases filed in each of the 14 counties included in the study. Upon receipt of this file, researchers screened participants using certain eligibility criteria. Researchers mailed postcard reminders two to five business days prior to the scheduled court appearance. Approximately one week after each scheduled court appearance researchers accessed the courts' administrative database (JUSTICE) to determine whether the defendant actually appeared for the scheduled hearing. Upon accessing this information, researchers recorded this variable, which is the primary dependent variable in the study. At the same time researchers recorded the appearance variable, they selected participants for Phase 2 of the study -- a mail survey administered after their scheduled appearance (or non-appearance) to assess their perceptions of procedural fairness and their level of trust/confidence in the courts. To do so, researchers selected all participants who failed to appear for their court date to receive a survey. Twenty percent of defendants who did appear were also randomly selected to receive a survey. Surveys were sent to a total of 2,360 individuals and were received from a total of 452 defendants. The study contains a total of 197 variables including demographics, court appearance characteristics, experiment characteristics, charge/offense variables, and variables from surveys about experiences with the court system.

本研究旨在考察不同类型书面提醒措施对轻罪被告人出庭缺席（Failure to Appear, FTA）率的抑制效果。研究采用两阶段实验设计，针对出庭缺席问题展开探究。第一阶段中，研究人员从美国内布拉斯加州（Nebraska）14个县选取了7865名轻罪被告人，将其随机分配至四种干预条件：(1) 无提醒对照组；(2) 仅提醒组；(3) 提醒并告知缺席可能面临的制裁组（以下简称提醒-制裁组）；(4) 提醒提及制裁同时强调程序正义（Procedural Justice, PJ）要素（如发言权、中立性、尊重性及公共利益）的组合组（以下简称提醒-组合组）。数据收集工作于2009年3月启动，持续至2010年5月结束，研究人员每日从内布拉斯加州法院行政办公室获取包含研究涉及的14个县案件信息的数据文件，收到文件后将依据既定资格标准对受试者进行筛选。研究人员于预定庭审日期前2至5个工作日，向符合条件的被告人邮寄明信片式提醒通知。在每一次预定庭审结束约一周后，研究人员调取法院行政数据库JUSTICE，以核实被告人是否实际到庭参加庭审，获取该到庭信息后，研究人员记录本次庭审到庭情况变量——本研究的核心因变量。在记录该到庭变量的同时，研究人员筛选出本研究第二阶段的受试者：即针对已完成预定庭审（或未到庭）的被告人开展邮寄问卷调查，以评估其对程序公平的感知程度及对法院的信任/信心水平，具体抽样方案为选取所有未按时到庭的被告人参与调查，同时从按时到庭的被告人中随机抽取20%纳入调查。本次调查共向2360名个体发放问卷，最终回收有效问卷452份。本数据集共包含197个变量，涵盖人口统计学特征、庭审出庭相关特征、实验干预特征、指控/犯罪相关变量，以及关于法院系统体验的问卷调研变量。