The Court Appearance Project

Diverse teams of justice system stakeholders in New Hanover, Orange, and Robeson counties participated in the North Carolina Court Appearance Project, seeking to improve local court appearance rates and develop better responses to nonappearances. The teams examined local court and jail data, reflected on court practices and procedures, and crafted policy solutions suited to the needs of their communities and courtrooms. We recently released a report describing the project teams’ initial efforts. This post summarizes key takeaways from that report. Measuring the problem Applying an evidence-based approach, project teams first examined data to understand the scale of missed appearances. They found that, in North Carolina, about 1 in 6 criminal cases had at least one missed court appearance, amounting to almost 250,000 absences a year. These absences are inefficient for court personnel and cause inconvenience for people involved as witnesses, victims, and anyone else expecting a proceeding. Additionally, common responses to nonappearance can land people in jail or prevent them from driving, causing significant consequences for them, their families, and the community. Traffic misdemeanors constituted the lion’s share of nonappearances (82%). Driving While License Revoked (Non-impaired) was the most common offense for missing court, followed by Expired Registration and Speeding. Together, these three offenses accounted for about half of all nonappearances. Put another way, about half of all nonappearances occur in low-level or administrative traffic offenses. If you’re curious about nonappearance data for your county, you can explore the court nonappearance tab on the Lab’s Measuring Justice Dashboard. There, you can [...]