LIBERTY FUND INC
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Mission Statement
The Liberty Fund is dedicated to reducing the number of New Yorkers subjected to unnecessary pretrial detention while simultaneously providing the much needed social services to this population. We achieve this by providing bail and case management services to any qualifying client throughout the pendency of their court case. The Liberty Fund reduces the pretrial jail population, prevents the poorest New Yorkers from having their lives upended and their freedom sacrificed, and provides support in order to avoid future interactions with the criminal justice system.
About This Cause
As NYC’s first/only city-wide charitable bail fund, The Liberty Fund is an independent 501(c)(3) organization originally established in 2016 in partnership with NYC Council and George McDonald, founder/president of The Doe Fund, NYC’s leading agency in reducing recidivism and homelessness through workforce development. An anonymous foundation provided the funds to create a revolving bail fund for posting bail. In 2019, The Liberty Fund was a Merit Finalist in the Mutual of America 2019 Community Partnership annual competition. Since 2017, our services have helped nearly 1,100 vulnerable people access needed community based services while also preventing 5,000+ days of pretrial detention with a $3.7M cost savings. The Liberty Fund clearly represents a more economically sensible alternative to pretrial detention, while addressing economic and racial inequities in the criminal justice system. In January 2020, New York State drastically reduced misdemeanor bail, allowing more people to be released on their own recognizance (ROR). This reform is based on the growing body of research that public safety is not negatively affected when individuals are allowed to remain in the community and provide support for their families, as well as to more adequately assist them in resolving their legal matters. This reform is significant because Black/Latino populations continue to be arrested at alarmingly higher/disproportionate rates for misdemeanors in NYC. These reforms have already been modified as of July 2020, enabling more bail-eligible cases, and as NYC's only remaining charitable bail fund, we have witnessed an uptick in bail services. With the onset of bail reform in January 2020, The Liberty Fund’s planned pivot was the ROR Case Management Program, as a proactive response to this monumental bail reform effort. In 2018, over 96,000 people were ROR’d. The overall goals of the program are to: 1. Build trust and rapport with clients. 2. Support clients in other aspects of their lives through voluntary services. 3. Facilitate clients’ personal success to prevent further recidivism. We achieve this through our unique approach: - Pretrial - Interventions initiated at the most critical touchpoint for success. - Voluntary - Non-mandated services to ensure no additional sanctions, no net widening; we work exclusively with defense counsel and not with Judges/DAs. - Person-Centered - Best-fit services determined by the client to promote their personal agency and voice. - Court-Based - Low-touch engagement leveraged at court for effective time usage. Each client participates in the following services during the pendency of their case: 1. Case Management - Provide intake, needs assessments, service action plans and wellness calls. 2. Critical Court Needs - Provide client court-reminders and emergency needs (MetroCards, food vouchers, hygiene kits). 3. Direct Workforce Development and Homelessness Interventions - Provide referrals to best-fit housing/job training programs. In response to COVID-19, we effectively converted to a virtual format for the uninterrupted provision of essential services. As NYC courts continue to re-open, we are adapting to provide our programming for continued bail reform in NYC’s COVID landscape and beyond, including sharing our model for replication in other jurisdictions interested in bail reform.