Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh

The Bukit Bail Fund is named after Frank “Bukit” Smart, Jr., a former inmate of the Allegheny County Jail who died of a seizure while incarcerated. The fund claims to “fight for the abolition of all jails” in his name. ⁴

Activities

The Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh primarily provides cash bail for those awaiting trial at the Allegheny County Jail. However, it also advocates for the abolition of cash bail and pretrial detention, the abolition of all prisons and jails, and the preferential treatment of Black inmates over others. ¹

The Bukit Bail Fund also publishes statistics about the Allegheny County Jail that it claims are unjust. For example, the fund claims that 75 percent of the people in Allegheny County Jail have a history of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or mental health issues; it claims that 48 percent have mental health issues and a drug or alcohol problem. The fund also reports that the Allegheny County Jail has the second-highest rate of suicides across the 50 largest jails in the United States. According to the fund, 81 percent of inmates at the jail have not been convicted of any crime, and in 2015, the jail had twice the national death rate of other U.S. jails. ⁵

The Bukit Bail Fund has also produced three short films about the Allegheny County Jail. In the short film Breaking Down Bail the fund argues for the elimination of the money bail system as a way to reduce mass incarceration in the U.S. In another film, How Much Is Your Freedom Worth?, the fund argues that bail creates long-term problems for many American families. Finally, in New Jersey’s Money Bail Overhaul: A Success Story, the fund presents New Jersey’s money bail reform efforts as a successful example of modifying the cash bail system in America. The film argues that since New Jersey “essentially ended its money bail system” in 2017, the state’s pretrial incarceration rate has since dropped 17.2 percent. ⁶

When the University of Pittsburgh’s department of sociology issued a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the department endorsed the Bukit Bail Fund as an organization “standing against anti-Blackness and White supremacy.” ⁷

In November 2021, the Bukit Bail Fund expressed opposition to Pennsylvania House of Representatives Bill 2046, which the fund claimed would “preclude church groups or families who are pooling together resources to put together that money order or cashier’s check for an egregiously high bail.” Although the bill passed the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, it failed in committee in the Pennsylvania Senate. ^{8  9}

In April 2022, Bukit Bail Fund organizer Muhammad Ali Nasir testified in front of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Democratic Policy Committee during a panel on the topic of cash bail. Nasir’s testimony argued for an end to the use of cash bail as what he calls a “coercive” tactic used to incarcerate people before their conviction. ¹⁰

Alliance for Global Justice

The Alliance for Global Justice is the fiscal sponsor of the Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh. ³ AfGJ is an organizing group that serves as a fiscal sponsor to several left-wing projects, including Legal Defense for Palestine (LDP), the Community Action Relief Project (CARP), Refuse Fascism, United Students Against Sweatshops, and Stop Mass Incarceration, another prison abolitionist group. ^{3  11  12} AfGJ arose from the Nicaragua Network, an organization that supported the communist-aligned Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and other socialist regimes around the world. ¹³

In addition to its fiscal sponsorship of the Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh and other prison abolitionist organizations, the Alliance for Global Justice fiscally sponsors several pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel groups, including the One Democratic State Campaign which openly calls for the abolition of the State of Israel. ^{14  15}

In January 2023, AfGJ received a federal complaint over its fundraising efforts for Collectif Palestine Vaincra (CPV). CPV is a French nonprofit organization that is a partner of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and an umbrella organization of groups connected to the political group the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Marc Greendorfer, an attorney and head of pro-Israel advocacy group Zachor Legal Institute, demanded the Internal Revenue Service investigate AfGJ for “providing ‘material support’ to terrorism.” ¹⁶

Finances

In 2020, the Tides Center issued a $25,000 grant to the Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh. ¹⁷

In 2021, the Bukit Bail Fund’s fiscal sponsor, the Alliance for Global Justice, issued the fund a $968,549 grant. ¹⁸ AfGJ issued $10,000 more in grants to the Bukit Bail Fund in 2022. ¹⁹