Our Story

For more than a decade, The Bronx Freedom Fund's dedicated team worked tirelessly in the fight against mass incarceration, paying bail to mitigate the harms of pretrial detention, and advocating for a more just and humane pretrial system. Close to 95% of our clients made every one of their court appearances even though they had no money on the line. Almost 50% of the cases in which we posted bail were dismissed, and over the life of the fund, fewer than 2% of the people for whom we provided bail assistance received a jail sentence. In short, we proved that when it comes to bail, money really does buy justice.

The organization's work was rooted in solidarity with coalitions and community members in the Bronx and Queens, and powered by the generous support of thousands of individual donors.  Though it temporarily suspended bail assistance in the wake of New York’s initial bail reform laws, The Freedom Fund’s broader mission continued through The Bail Project, the national organization it helped inspire. In addition, in 2023, in light of recent rollbacks of the initial legislation, The Bronx Freedom Fund once again stands ready to resume providing bail assistance to low-income New Yorkers.