The Liberty Fund

The Elevate Prize would greatly benefit The Liberty Fund in the continued rollout of the new ROR Case Management Program in the unfolding bail reform and COVID-19/social justice landscapes. The ROR Case Management Program is a holistic model to reduce jail populations and ensure justice reform momentum by providing charitable bail and ROR (released on recognizance) services. This award will help underwrite key costs, while the cohort learning will impact our entire team and strategy.

In January 2020, New York State drastically reduced misdemeanor bail (along with speedy trial and discovery reforms), allowing more people to be released on their own recognizance (ROR) into the community. This reform is based on the growing body of research that public safety is improved when individuals are allowed to remain in the community and provide support for their families while resolving their legal matters. 

As a proactive response to this monumental reform effort, The Liberty Fund planned a strategic pivot from charitable bail to the ROR Case Management Program by providing voluntary enhanced case management to this vulnerable population. Amounting to nearly 80,000 people in 2018, the ROR pretrial population could benefit from our interventions.

I’ve been in the criminal justice system my entire adult life - as a police officer, an attorney, an advocate, a mediator, a college professor of criminal justice studies, and now, as Executive Director of The Liberty Fund.  Over my 30+ year career, I have seen the terrible consequences of an unfair system. Our ROR Program has been designed and informed by these years of public service.

Liberty Fund's strongest asset is our dynamic and experienced staff team of six full-time members.  All Liberty Fund staff are certified case managers trained to pick up on nuances in our special population to identify additional needs. 

Furthermore, the daily operations of the ROR Program is overseen by our Social Services Director, Yolanda Seltzer, LMSW. Yolanda’s passion is a culmination of her 30+ years of experience in the criminal justice and social work sectors, most notable as Captain at the NYC Department of Corrections, where she worked directly with the inmate population, witnessing firsthand the negative impacts of detention on individuals who couldn’t afford bail.

The Liberty Fund’s mission is to reduce the pretrial jail population, prevent the poorest New Yorkers from having their lives upended and their freedom sacrificed, and provide support in order to avoid future interactions with the criminal justice system. We achieve our mission by providing pretrial services, including bail and robust case management, to any qualifying bail or ROR client throughout the pendency of their court case.

As NYC’s first and 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 the late George McDonald, founder of The Doe Fund, NYC’s leading agency in reducing recidivism and homelessness through workforce development. Today, our justice work continues to be a proactive solution in terms of addressing criminal justice issues, providing important reform-centered programming and tackling the social determinants of health, economic impact and racial inequities.

Since 2017, our social service impacts include:

• Helped 1,200+ clients access community-based services. 

• Prevented 5,000+ days of detention.

• Facilitated annual cost savings of $3million.

• Achieved an 87% client court appearance rate.

• Our model was a Merit Finalist in the Mutual of America 2019 Community Partnership annual competition.

Our ROR Case Management Program ensures justice reform momentum by connecting clients to best-fit services in order to prevent further recidivism using a voluntary, person-centered approach that builds rapport, trust, and personal agency in a population that has suffered long-term systemic oppression. 

Our first innovation is the target population. Open to all level misdemeanors, our expertise is with individuals charged with lower-level/nonviolent crimes who have had several prior interactions with the criminal justice system. We tend to work with an older, male population, many of whom are homeless. Key demographics include: 87% are men; 62% are age 30 or older; 53% are Black; and 35% Hispanic. Our clients are individuals from NYC communities who have suffered long-term systemic oppression and who have been historically impacted by racial/social injustices.

Another innovation is our voluntary, person-centered approach.  This groundbreaking, restorative nature allows clients to determine the pathway of their interventions, which builds rapport, trust, and personal agency in a population that has suffered long-term systemic oppression.  Our low-touch interventions initiated at critical touchpoints (pretrial/reentry) help cease a person’s further criminal justice system involvement. Our model prevents damaging impacts of “net-widening” and places no additional court mandates on our participants, as these mandates can potentially cause further and protracted entanglement in the criminal justice system. 

The Liberty Fund presents a pathway to continued reform for NYC during the confluences of COVID and social unrest. Black/Hispanic populations continue to be disproportionately arrested for misdemeanor crimes in NYC, including non-violent, non-criminal parole violations. A criminal record can disqualify people of housing, employment and other benefits. Other issues include: bail reform rollbacks, critical service gaps, rising detention costs and threats to public health and safety.

In addition to remaining NYC’s ONLY charitable bail fund to serve those detained due to the bail reform rollbacks, our new ROR Case Management Program also provides a platform to address the non-violent, non-criminal parole violations that continue to stagnate at the Rikers Island jail complex.  Through our ROR model, we hope to increase our criminal and social justice footprint through the following:

1. Serve as an “incubator” for piloting new programs specifically geared towards recent criminal justice reforms.

2. Advocate for policy positions that best reduce homelessness/recidivism and promote racial/economic/social justice.

3. Explore/expand partnerships with not-for-profit organizations and governmental agencies in the criminal and social justice areas, including more government funding.

4. Replicate in other jurisdictions in the nation interested in bail reform by sharing our implementation data.