Preventing a Failure to Appear Involves More Than Just a Text Message
Bail reform proponents have recently been focusing a lot of their articles and online narrative on the effective nature of text messages. In their opinion, if you want to get someone who is accused of a crime to show up for court all you need to do is send them a text message. Their studies highlight the low-cost of text reminders in criminal justice systems, with one analysis showing they cost just $9.84 to prevent a failure to appear (FTA) compared to $2,850 when someone doesn’t show up, a warrant is issued, and the defendant is remanded back to court. However, in the ongoing debate over bail reform and cashless bail, these passive notifications fall short by lacking true accountability. In a recent article entitled “Accountability Matters: A Simple Text is Not Enough to Keep us Safe,” Eric Granof explains why release through a financially secured surety bond is much more effective in not only getting defendants to court, but in lowering costs for counties. Financially secured surety bonds—where licensed bail agents post the full amount after a defendant pays a 10-15% non-refundable fee—deliver superior results through active monitoring and financial incentives, far outperforming unsecured pretrial release options under cashless bail models that rely solely on reminders.
Dr. Robert G. Morris’s landmark 2013 Dallas County study on pretrial release mechanisms analyzed over 22,000 defendants and found commercial surety bonds achieved the highest court appearance rate at 77%, compared to 71% for cash bonds, 66% for attorney bonds, and just 63% for public sector unsecured pretrial releases. Follow-up research confirmed lower FTA and bond forfeiture rates with surety bonds, generating over $10 million in county savings by reducing warrants, arrests, and detention costs—expenses that plague cashless bail and bail reform experiments. Bail agents’ “skin in the game” provides proactive supervision that text reminders cannot match, making surety bonds a proven, zero-cost-to-taxpayers alternative that enhances public safety while complementing—not replacing—notification tools in modern pretrial release strategies. Below is an excerpt from Mr. Granof’s article as well as a link to the full article.
Lately, there have been a lot of articles being written on the value of a simple text reminder in the criminal justice system. Most recently, a blog post on the eCourtDate website showed that it only cost the court $9.84 to prevent a failure to appear with a text message. They compare this number to $2,850 per failure to appear when a warrant had to be issued, and the defendant had to be remanded back to jail. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE>>>
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