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.

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.”

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 LG- BTQ 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.

“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.

“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 understand 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.”

Scott Greenberg, founder of Connecticut's first bail fund

lgbtqfund.org

Some LGBTQ people were detained while seeking asylum after fleeing persecution due to their sexual orientation or identity. “The immigration bail work that we are doing is nationwide. And we’ve bailed out a lot of LGBT folks from a lot of different corners of the globe who are just fleeing really awful, awful anti-LGBT violence,” Greenberg said.

Following the bail-out process, the LGBTQ Freedom Fund provides additional services. Those might be offered directly, or through partner organizations. “We have our own case management program here at the LGBTQ Freedom Fund where we're able to connect people to resources and also follow up,” said Tremaine Jones, project director for the LGBTQ Freedom Fund. HIV -- a major concern in the LBGTQ community -- is also covered.

According to “Unjust,” some of the highest rates of new HIV infections occur in prisons and maximum correctional facilities among LGBTQ inmates.

“We do a lot of education around HIV. It's about making sure that people get resources for HIV testing, STI testing, or even getting trans people to get on HRT. We also connect them to resources in the community where they can get tested or get connected to better care,” Jones said. “Not only are we getting our people out of jail because we want to get them out of jail, but it's also about making sure that people have the resources so that they're able to less likely get caught up in getting arrested again.”

Jones said seeing these people get the help they need and to be able to rejoin society is a rewarding experience. “I've been fortunate enough to witness people develop the understanding and knowledge of what their rights are and create the tools to be able to advocate for themselves.”

Jones would like to take it even further. “I would like to create an outreach program that is composed of LGBTQ folks who share this history and are able to engage with others. A program where we're compensating people for their time, like an internship, where it also gives them opportunity to get over the hurdle of job insecurity,” said Jones.

Certain people within the community are more impacted than others. According to “Unjust,” Black LGBTQ individuals are five times more likely to be incarcerated than any other ethnicity. Additionally, of the 3.2 million LGBTQ youth in the United States, nearly half are at risk of being arrested.

The study also outlines discriminatory enforcement of laws that impact LGBTQ people disproportionately: criminalization of HIV and consensual sex; and enforcement of drug laws. People living with HIV are at a constant risk of being charged even when prevention measures are taken and transmission proves unintentional. Laws criminalizing consensual sex blatantly

target the LGBTQ community with over-policing in areas notorious for casual homosexual encounters. The war on drugs punishes the LGBTQ community at a higher rate due to the group’s vulnerability with drug use and drug dealing as a coping mechanism and a financial means for survival.

The Chicago Community Bond Fund helps bring awareness to the underlying issue of money bonds by emphasizing equality and fair chance. “Our criteria for posting bail is not based on a particular set of charges,” Payton said. “Our system just penalizes people for the sake of penalizing them. Not because someone was hurt, not because someone is at risk of being hurt, but literally just to punish because they can.”

Understanding these circumstances and giving these people a means of defense is important, said Payton. “There are unique challenges that are faced by different marginalized groups. It's just about people getting back to their lives and doing what they were all meant to be doing.”

On February 22, Gov. J. B. Pritzker signed the Pretrial Fairness Act passed by the Illinois General Assembly in January. The new law makes Illinois the first state to end the use of money bonds, ensuring no one will end up incarcerated due to the inability to afford bond.

How the broken criminal justice system fails LGBTQ people of color.

Sharlyn Grace, executive director of the Chicago Community Bond Fund and active member of the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, described situations this new legislation is intended to prevent. “When people are arrested and given a money bond they can’t afford to pay, they end up in jail… that increases the chance of someone losing their job, their housing and their access to the resources they need.”

According to the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice's Coalition to End Money Bond, this new legislation will also ensure faster release, require courts to provide common sense pretrial services, increase government transparency and accountability and, most importantly, warrant reform.

Grace added that this warranted reform will help minorities who are more criminalized due to rampant discrimination. “It’s designed to try to bring more equity in the opportunities that people have.”

Payton said it was essentially the Chicago Community Bond Fund’s advocacy that “really wrote” the bill. However, there is still work to be done. “Legislation is not necessarily final. The same way a law can be passed, a law can be passed to repeal that law.

“We’re going to continue doing a lot of advocacy, awarenessbuilding and meeting with legislators... making sure to hold those accountable to get the legislation implemented properly.”

The advocacy and awareness-building resonates with donors. “Our success was very lucky. We don’t have a PR firm. I don’t have a doctorate, I’m not a lawyer. I’m just telling them something they haven’t heard before,” said Greenberg. “We got a lot of celebrities to come and support us, a lot of big tech companies and other organizations that finally started to pay attention to this intersectional issue about sexual orientation and gender identity when you're talking about mass incarceration.”

None of this would have been possible, he noted, if not for the greater acceptance of LGBTQ people in recent years. “We are advocating on an issue that people were finally willing to hear,” he said. “It’s amazing to see people using our organization as a springboard to giving a voice to all of this. Now we can start having these conversations… it’s not an alien concept anymore.”