The Massachusetts Probation Service reported that it has “made great strides” in serving to lower the variety of warrants issued for “failure to appear” instances.
In the annual report on the Massachusetts court docket system, the probation service highlighted the Interactive Text Response program, which alerts court docket customers of upcoming court docket dates.
More than 218,600 textual content alerts have been despatched in fiscal yr 2022, a whopping 264% improve from the earlier fiscal yr.
“During the year, MPS made great strides in adding court events and capturing phone numbers to opt into the program,” the annual report reads. “Between April and June 2022, over 78,000 profitable notifications have been despatched to litigants throughout the state — 18,000 greater than the earlier quarter.
“The failure to appear rate for pretrial hearings was consistently lower for the text reminder group regardless of age, race, ethnicity, gender, or offense severity,” the court docket system reported in its year-end report.
The annual report summarized how the court docket system was in a position to restore some normalcy amid the COVID pandemic and made headway utilizing know-how.
“Though the pandemic continued to impact court operations in FY 2022, particularly through the first half of the year, we are pleased that the courts successfully adopted new practices that have improved and expedited court processes,” Kimberly Budd, chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and different court docket leaders wrote within the report.
New case filings in Trial Court totaled 684,483 — a 13% improve from the primary full fiscal yr of the pandemic.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”