New initiative brings youth and city leaders together to shape policy and interventions.

The New Rochelle Community Justice Center (NRCJC), in collaboration with the City of New Rochelle, launched a new cohort called the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council (JAYC) in March.  

This eight-week social action and life skills-building educational seminar brings together city officials, civic organizers, and emerging adults (18-25 years old), some of them justice-involved, to help shape policy and interventions at the community level.  By bringing emerging adults together with older adults, the JAYC provides a platform for joint learning and discussion that leads to better informed actions and policy decisions for all youth in the larger community.  

In a collaborative learning environment, the cohort members tackle subjects such as mass incarceration, community policing, mental health, and education as they exist in  New Rochelle.  During the eight weeks, the young adults meet once a week with the adult cohort members to work on co-authoring policy proposals aimed at transforming systems, driving institutional change, or addressing community challenges.  Once a week, the young adults are also given the opportunity to participate on a site visit to a location in New Rochelle to provide them with insight or inspiration to inform their policy proposals.  

JAYC was founded by Jarrell E. Daniels, a Bronx native, Truman Scholar, and graduating senior at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. In 2019, one year after coming home from prison, Jarrell founded the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council (JAYC) at Columbia’s Center for Justice and brought it to New Rochelle as part of the NRCJC. 

JAYC joins three other program initiatives that make up the NRCJC.  The four NRCJC initiatives work together to improve community safety and strengthen outcomes for New Rochelle’s youth and emerging adults by investing in community-led safety, youth opportunity, and systems level innovation.  NRCJC is an outgrowth of a larger movement, building on the Center’s successful court and community-based project models, beginning in the fall of 2020 with the launch of the New Rochelle Opportunity Youth Part (OYP). OYP has seen tremendous success in serving emerging adults who are facing misdemeanor or felony charges.  More than 50 participants have successfully completed Opportunity Youth Part programming and had their cases closed.

In addition to JAYC and OYP, the NRCJC includes the Community Youth Violence Intervention Initiative (CYVII), which focuses on the unique needs of emerging adults (ages 18-24), providing opportunities tailored for this age group, including credible mentoring, peer counseling, community advocacy, violence diversion, workforce education, and post-secondary referrals.  And the Youth Justice & Equity Team (YJET), a prevention and enrichment program for younger people in middle and high school (ages 10-17) in New Rochelle, implements positive intervention measures (such as education, vocational training, and community support) to reduce youth involvement in the criminal justice system and better prepare youth for life after high school. 

The NRCJC works in collaboration with the Center for Justice Innovation, a New York City-based social justice and change agency that assists communities and justice systems to advance equity, increase safety, and help individuals and communities thrive.  

The NRCJC is the nucleus of a larger ecosystem that the City is developing to support the citizens of New Rochelle with youth and emerging adults as its focus.  Through its new four-pillar model (JAYC, OYP, YJET, and CYVII), the NRCJC aims to mobilize the expertise and experiences of key community stakeholders, youth and young adults, and community residents to create a safer, more equitable community.