FREEdom Funding: Bringing justice to incarcerated lgbtq individuals by Lukas Matuszewski
Scott Greenberg isn’t easily surprised. As the founder of Connecticut's first bail fund, he was familiar with injustice. But a 2017 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA about the incarceration rate of LGBTQ people shocked him. They were three times more likely than the general population to be put in jail. "It was more than you would expect," he said. "It seemed like there was an overrepresentation.” This study wasn’t an outlier. Another study by the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law quoted by Reuters news service found that incarceration rates of sexual minorities were 1,882 for every 100,000 -- again, three times as high as the average 612 per 100,000 for non-sexual minorities in the U.S.
In 2017, Greenberg founded the LGBTQ Freedom Fund, which posts bail for incarcerated people, keeping them out of jail while they await their trials (the money is refunded when they show up in court). Pretrial freedom is important for LGBTQ people, who are also at a greater risk of abuse and violence in jail. According to the 2016 study, “Unjust: How The Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People” by the Movement Advancement Project, 74% of LGBTQ people held in jail can’t afford bail or legal representation; 69% of LGBTQ people have experienced homelessness at some point, making it more likely that they will be arrested.
“I said, I am going to put this all together and build this direct intervention to get these LGBT folks out,” Greenberg said. “From bailing folks out, to education, to research on all the different ways and complex facets of the criminal legal system and understanding how do LGBT people intersect with it in unique ways.” The LGBTQ Freedom Fund began with just $500 and a strategy of working together with other bail funds in the National Bail Fund Network. “Sometimes we don’t have the resources and capacity to post bonds entirely on our own or under-
stand all the laws and procedures,” he said. The next year, its budget was closer to $150,000, and today it has several million dollars and a lot more ability to not only post bail, but to offer programs to help LGBTQ people avoid entanglement with the carceral system. “I wrote a lot of grants and raised money that way, but mobilizing, tapping into social media, and seeing the power of connecting with people who are willing to support the cause -- that’s where the financial power has come from for us,” Greenberg said. “Most of the money that we have just comes from small dollar donations. It’s the people that want to support us and donate $20,$10, or even $5.” Recent protests have increased donations. “A lot of donations came in the midst of the Black Lives Matter uprising because a lot of people were first made aware of what bail funds are,” said Briana Payton, policy fellow at the Chicago Community Bond Fund. Since 2017, the Freedom Fund has helped post bail for people in 15 states, including California, Florida and Illinois. This includes LGBTQ people in jails as well as immigration detention centers. “How do you build a case that displays that you should be granted bond or asylum when you’re shackled behind bars?” said Greenberg. “When we bail folks out, it actually gives them that opportunity.” www.streetwise.org
FROM THE STREETS
“People are in survival mode, with high risks of contracting HIV. They have harsher sentences. They have to deal with higher rates of sexual assault or harassment. Oftentimes they're being placed in a facility that does not affirm their gender,” Greenberg said.
Scott Greenberg (lgbtqfund.org).
One reason for this disparity is LBGTQ bigotry. “What gets you there is widespread discrimination, family rejection, discrimination in employment and all of these factors feeding people into places in life where they are more likely to be caught up in criminalization,” Greenberg said. “The reality is that there’s not really many services for LGBTQ folks.”
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