Measuring Justice Dashboard: New Court Non-Appearance Metric

We recently updated our Measuring Justice Dashboard with a new metric on court non-appearance. As with all Dashboard metrics, you can explore the data at the state and county level. Here’s a quick summary of what you’ll see on the Dashboard’s new metric. But if you want to get right to it, click here to access the Dashboard directly. The Court Non-Appearance Map Tab lets you compare state and county-level non-appearance rates. Counties with non-appearance rates above the statewide rate appear in a blue gradient scale; counties below the statewide rate appear in a green gradient scale. As you hover your mouse over each county, you’ll see county names and local non-appearance rates. The legend shows the statewide non-appearance rate for cases initiated in the years you select, from 2019 through 2021. As shown below, at the state level for cases initiated in 2019 through 2021 the non-appearance rate is 14%. On the flip side, that means that people appear as required in 86% of cases.   The Count Tab shows the number of court non-appearances by year of case initiation. This tool lets you explore trends in the volume of non-appearances over time. In the graphic below, we see the volume of non-appearances declining over time. This is to be expected – newer cases have fewer opportunities for individuals to miss a court appearance than older cases. On the Age Tab you can see which age groups have the highest non-appearance rates. This can be helpful to know if you’re [...]