Research and service design to help New Yorkers avoid unnecessary arrest for low-level offenses

Process

LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS

We conducted key informant interviews, desk research, and quantitative data analysis to understand criminal justice trends, prior research and initiatives, and the scope of the warrants problem. We then scoped our research with MOCJ, the NYPD, and the OCA to build on existing knowledge and focus on key open questions.

design research

We conducted in-depth interviews, focus groups, and intercepts with 104 residents to understand the diverse barriers, motivations, and needs to appear in court and clear warrants. To understand existing services and constraints, we interviewed and shadowed 30 court employees and legal providers and through observations and service trials at existing warrant-clearing services both in and out of court.

Participating residents represented key populations affected by warrants (determined through our landscape analysis) and were compensated for their time. Our community researchers—folks who lived and worked in the same communities as our participants—led outreach and research activities. We connected with residents through community events and our partnerships with community and public defender organizations. Our research evolved over time, with earlier activities seeking to understand people’s experiences and later ones focused on their appetite for different emerging opportunities.

synthesis

To define key audiences for our resulting intervention, we used a 2x2 matrix to identify key factors which influence a person to clear their warrant. After testing multiple 2x2s by which to cluster our respondents, we identified ability—their perception of how well they can arrange time and assets to go to court—and confidence—their understanding of warrants, the clearing process, and how it applies to them—as key influencers. We then detailed six user personas and accompanying journey maps to communicate how different perceptions, experiences, and motivations impact a resident’s likelihood to clear their warrant.

OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS

Based on our research, we identified 11 potential interventions and proposed combinations of them which could address multiple barriers to clear. With the NYPD, OCA, and MOCJ, we then evaluated the potential impact and feasibility of each intervention, identifying what back-end hurdles we would need to overcome to realize them. We chose to pursue an advocacy campaign and informational hotline for further design and prototyping, based on its potential integration with existing services and ability to address key barriers as follows:

PROTOTYPING & USER TESTING

We iteratively designed this service by prototyping and testing its components with 41 residents. We used prototyping to ensure that the campaign would resonate with our key audiences, that the hotline would effectively fill their informational gaps, and that both would further motivate them to clear. We defined success criteria—attention, trust, comprehension, and action—to evaluate the success of our prototypes and inform iterations. We designed the advocacy campaign by testing key messaging, imagery, and concepts with residents, in increasing levels of fidelity. We also simulated the hotline interaction and script with residents—an experience which led one testing participant to clear his warrant.

PILOT

In the fall of 2018, we partnered with the Legal Aid Society to pilot the campaign and hotline in the Bronx. The pilot provided a robust test of the service’s potential impact in motivating residents to clear their warrants and feasibility to implement as an integration to an existing legal support service.

Advocacy Campaign: We finalized four campaign concepts to appeal to our priority audiences. We distributed posters, flyers, palm cards, and digital assets through trusted information channels identified in our research, including public hotspots, community-based organizations, local news stations, and social media.

Hotline: We co-designed the pilot script and workflow with the Legal Aid Society so that their staff could integrate the hotline into their normal intake operations. We tested the script with the Legal Aid team, helped them set up protocols for handling calls, and trained their staff in the running the hotline.

EVALUATION

Over 6 weeks, the hotline received 121 calls. While all callers found out whether or not they had a warrant, 40% of these callers also received support on a variety of legal issues. 27 callers had warrants from low-level offenses, and within 6 months after calling, 41% of them had cleared their warrants.

To assess the pilot’s performance we analyzed caller and campaign data and interviewed callers, hotline operators, and partner organizations. Our evaluation looked both at the pilot’s impact, toward improving resident’s comprehension and motivation to clear, and future feasibility, by assessing the resourcing required and potential evolutions of the hotline. Reboot delivered recommendations to MOCJ on how to more effectively build credibility and awareness of the hotline, equip hotline providers, and address remaining, persistent barriers to clear warrants.