Scott Greenberg was exposed to the prison system at a young age. His parents frequently took him to visit an incarcerated relative, but told him it was a summer camp to not scare him.
“I remember being like, ‘This is a weird kind of summer camp,’” Greenberg said. “But there's a lot of horribleness that I'm now aware of. Back then, it just felt weird, and that's been sort of imprinted on me.”
Contextualizing that “weirdness” as he got older is what led Greenberg down a path to eventually becoming the executive director of LGBTQ Freedom Fund –– a nonprofit organization based in Delray Beach that combats high incarceration rates of marginalized communities by paying their pretrial bails or bonds.
A report from the Prison Policy Initiative shows that lesbian, gay and bisexual people are more than twice as likely to be arrested than straight people. Some factors that play a large part in this are the disproportionate rates of LGBTQ homeless people that end up incarcerated or laws against behaviors that have a risk of spreading HIV.
Additionally, one in six trans people have been incarcerated at one point, including almost half of all Black trans people.
Paying the bonds can eliminate disruptions in the individual’s life, such as employment and taking care of kids, which Greenberg said helps them keep their jobs and family secure.
Freedom Fund also pays bonds for immigration cases, including LGBTQ people who escaped a country with extreme homophobic conditions.
Bailing people out also improves the chances of having positive outcomes in their cases, Greenberg said, as “cases in detention run faster than cases out of detention.”
For some cases, you’re buying them more time in the U.S. because if they lose, they could be sent back to their home country where they’ve experienced trauma.
“It's worth it on a personal level, it's worth it on a humanitarian level, it's worth it in the level of solidarity,” Greenberg said. “And it's worth it just for them because they're in a lot better place when they get out.”
Greenberg started Freedom Fund in 2018, only focusing on the LGBTQ community in Broward and paying small bail fees ranging from $25-100. As donations and demand grew, Greenberg said the organization expanded its services around the U.S. and has the ability to pay bonds for a diverse range of cases.
In order for an individual to get their bond paid, Freedom Fund usually gets a referral from a representative such as a social worker, case manager or nonprofit. The representative is then sent an application for them to describe the situation and other things Freedom Fund should consider when posting the bond. This could include setting up transportation for an individual who is being detained in an area with no family or information for the Freedom Fund to stay in contact with the individual once they’re out.
Most of the time, Freedom Fund gets the bond money it posts back, which Greenberg said is recycled and used for other cases.
But paying someone’s bond isn’t like waving a magic wand.
“It's important they get out, but [we don’t] lose sight of the fact that these are real people with complex lives,” Greenberg said. “If we're talking immigration, about people who have just come to a new country, it's not like paying someone's bond is going to fix all the discrimination or economic inequality. You're still dealing with a world that's very much against the people that we're helping."
Although it doesn’t make their situations perfect, Greenberg said the “harm reduction” Freedom Fund provides offers people a second chance in their trials and an opportunity to get representation.
“These people are very isolated, they're living and surrounded by people they don't know,” Greenberg said. “So people are very, very happy when they get out … helping a person get out of detention, coming from all that trauma, and get into better hands and have more control over their lives, that's a very good feeling.”
