Dana Kaplan is NICJR’s Director of Justice Reform. In this role, Dana leads NICJR’s work assisting jurisdictions across the country in developing community-based continuums of care for young people. Her work also includes supporting communities as they expand alternatives to youth incarceration through closing youth correctional facilities and reinvesting cost savings into community programs.
Dana is a seasoned public servant and nonprofit leader of over 20 years with a relentless passion for criminal justice reform. In addition to her work with NICJR, she is a Senior Advisor to the Independent Rikers Commission, supporting New York City’s groundbreaking effort to close the jails on Rikers Island, replace them with a smaller system of borough facilities with less than a third of their detention capacity, and transform Rikers Island itself into a green infrastructure hub.
Previously, Dana spent eight years at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, where she oversaw $150 million in contracted programming to reduce the city’s jail population and played a key leadership role in the development of the City’s plan to close Rikers. While at the Mayor’s Office, Dana also coordinated implementation of Raise the Age, including transferring 16- and 17-year-olds off of Rikers Island and into juvenile facilities; oversaw youth programming investments to reduce the number of incarcerated youth in New York overall; and played a leadership role on school climate reform and neighborhood-based efforts to improve public safety in public housing.
Prior to her work at the Mayor’s Office, Dana served as Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (now known as the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights). This statewide legal and advocacy organization monitored youth prison conditions, ran youth programming, and advanced a legislative agenda to reform Louisiana’s juvenile justice system, including ending mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles. Previously, with the Center for Constitutional Rights, she worked nationwide to provide technical assistance to both government and community organizations on detention reform and was the statewide organizer in a successful campaign to reduce the cost of collect phone calls from prisons.
Dana has been an Art for Justice Fellow, a Soros Justice Fellow, and received the John Gardner Fellowship for Public Service.
Shantay Jackson is the Director of the National Offices of Violence Prevention Network at NICJR. In this role, she is responsible for the strategic evolution of the Network’s support to offices of violence prevention, including growing its membership, cultivating a leadership pipeline, coordinating with national training and technical assistance (TTA) partners, and assisting with the jurisdictional institutionalization of offices. Shantay is passionate about advocating for social justice issues, including procedural justice, restorative practices, and education.
Prior to NICJR, Shantay served as Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement in Baltimore City. As a member of Mayor Brandon M. Scott’s Cabinet, she was responsible for addressing violence as a public health issue; serving as the accountability partner for all city agencies and local, state, and federal partners; delivering public safety policy recommendations; and conducting meaningful engagement with Baltimore City’s neighborhoods in the work of co-producing public safety.
Before dedicating her life to public service, Shantay spent almost 20 years in the private sector as the Assistant Vice President of Global Solutions and Technology at T. Rowe Price Associates and a Principal at Brown Advisory. After the Baltimore uprising in 2015, Shantay left corporate America and became Executive Director of the Baltimore Community Mediation Center, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing interpersonal conflict and community violence in Baltimore City by increasing the use of non-violent conflict resolution strategies. During her time there, she expanded the organization’s reach by rolling out a Police and Community Program, introduced community listening tours, and provided moderation and facilitation services to grassroots organizations and city agencies. This work led to her federal appointment as Community Engagement Liaison for the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) Consent Decree. Shantay also previously worked as Chief Operating Officer for the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC) Leadership and is the Founder and CEO of EVOLVE to Lead, an organizational leadership development consultancy.
Shantay’s background in the private sector, coupled with her nonprofit experience and personal lived experiences, enable her to authentically and seamlessly navigate political, private, and non-governmental arenas. She is often called upon by local, state, and national partners to share her philosophies associated with leadership, change, violence prevention, and police/community relations. Notably, this includes serving as Baltimore’s representative for the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative, providing funding recommendations for violence prevention to Baltimore City’s Congressional Delegation, meeting with members of the Maryland Governor’s executive team, and speaking to members of the Maryland Judiciary on transformative change for organizations and strategies for data evaluation when serving the community. Most recently, Shantay was honored by Black Girls Vote and Radio One for her work as a woman in the political sphere.
Shantay attended Villa Julie College, majoring in Computer Information Systems. She is a certified mediator and large-group facilitator, licensed consultant through the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, certified scrum master, and project management professional. She is also certified to conduct a host of organizational development trainings.
3Dr. Mikaela Rabinowitz is the Director of Data and Research at NICJR. She supervises NICJR’s team of Policy Analysts as they complete research and data analysis in criminal and juvenile justice, youth development, and violence reduction.
Mikaela is a long-time social science researcher who believes that rigorous investigation can help drive more just and equitable public policy. Prior to joining NICJR, she held a number of policy, research, and advocacy positions in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
Until July 2022, she served as the Director of Data, Research, and Analytics for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office under DA Chesa Boudin. In this role, she was responsible for establishing a research agenda aligned with the office’s strategic priorities and policy initiatives and overseeing the implementation of this agenda through internal projects and partnerships with academic and nonprofit research organizations. As part of the DA’s senior leadership team, Mikaela was part of an unprecedented effort to reduce the footprint of the criminal justice system in San Francisco, while increasing the infrastructure for diversion and restorative justice.
Mikaela is also an advocate for improving the quality, uniformity, and transparency of criminal justice data. To this end, she has been involved in local, state, and national criminal justice data transparency efforts, including the BJA-sponsored Justice Counts initiative and the recently signed Justice Data Accountability and Transparency Act in California.
In 2021, Mikaela published her first book, Incarceration without Conviction: Pretrial Detention and the Erosion of Innocence in American Criminal Justice with Routledge Press. Based on the results of a mixed-methods analysis of pretrial detention in Cook County, IL, she argues that the Supreme Court’s increasingly narrow interpretations of the presumption of innocence and due process protections for pretrial defendants, and the corresponding increase in pretrial detention, have fundamentally undermined the meaning and value of innocence in the criminal justice system.
Mikaela holds a PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in African American Studies from Columbia University.
Keiland Henderson serves as the Violence Reduction Associate Director at NICJR where he coordinates and manages the communication, technical assistance, and training for jurisdictions NICJR is supporting to develop Gun Violence Reduction Strategies (GVRS). This includes supporting the cities that are members of the National Offices of Violence Prevention. He also conducts ongoing research and writes reports on gun violence reduction.
Prior to joining NICJR, Keiland worked as the Community Engagement Coordinator for the City of Stockton’s Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) where he played a crucial role in implementing a city-wide violence reduction strategy. He also served as a Violence Interrupter and Outreach Supervisor; supervising a team of life coaches and case managers.
Prior to OVP, he worked as the Executive Director for the Reno-Tahoe Young Professionals Network and with Faith-Based Solutions; working for over ten years in nonprofit management, business development and community outreach.
He currently serves on Delta College’s Pathway to Law Advisory Board, San Joaquin County’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission and is an inaugural graduate of NICJR’s Professionals of Color Fellowship.
Diana Dahl is NICJR’s Director of Development and Operations. By ensuring high quality deliverables, igniting operational efficiencies, impacting key partnerships, and building organizational capacity, Diana’s leadership and expertise helps to advance NICJR’s sustainability and mission impact. She brings 18 years of experience leading nonprofits and small businesses serving historically marginalized and underserved populations across a wide variety of human service domains, including education, health, and justice.
Diana’s leadership centers on big picture visioning paired with the development of deliberate processes and relationships; data-driven decision-making that allows freedom to take reasonable risks required for innovation; an intentional balance of supporting yet challenging institutional systems; and active curiosity and inquiry as tools to enhance operational productivity, service quality, and team dynamics.
Prior to joining the NICJR team, Diana led Development, Marketing, and Operations for Resource Development Associates, a California-based consulting firm dedicated to social justice and equity. Diana led efforts to ensure a sustainable pipeline of mission-aligned work, tripling proposal development while increasing the organization’s award rate. She also provided oversight and quality assurance for grant services contracts, including grant writing that was awarded over $108 million for clients across California.
As former Executive Director of Middle Park Medical Foundation in Colorado, Diana tripled the Foundation’s service area and increased its giving tenfold. She developed what has become the largest fundraising event of its kind in the county, and she collaborated with other local leaders to design and seek funding to integrate mental health care into primary care and hospital settings, resulting in the largest mental health grant ever awarded in the county.
Within four years of development work in Philadelphia at ASPIRA, Inc. of Pennsylvania, Diana brought in over $25 million to build organizational capacity and expand learning programs within their PreK-12 bilingual school system. She designed summer work programs for middle and high school youth that resulted in 1st and 3rd place awards from Philadelphia’s citywide WorkReady system and she played a key role in acquiring two school management contracts totaling $100 million over five years.
Diana holds a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from Pennsylvania State University. She is also a graduate of Community Resource Center’s Nonprofit Leadership Development Program; the Special District Association of Colorado’s Leadership Fellowship focused on executive roles and ethics; and completed a Practitioner Inquiry Fellowship with the National Afterschool Matters Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania.
David Muhammad is a leader in the fields of criminal justice, violence prevention, and youth development. Mr. Muhammad is the Executive Director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR).
NICJR works to reduce incarceration and violence, improve the outcomes of system-involved youth and adults, and increase the capacity and expertise of the organizations that serve these individuals.
Through NICJR, David provides leadership and technical assistance to the Gun Violence Reduction Strategies in the cities across the country, including Oakland, CA; Indianapolis, IN; and Washington, DC. David helped lead a partnership of organizations and technical assistance providers that achieved a 50% reduction in shootings and homicides in Oakland. David was the main author of NICJR’s report on Oakland’s Successful Gun Violence Reduction Strategy.
David has worked to implement positive youth development into youth justice systems around the country and was the primary author of NICJR’s seminal report, A Positive Youth Justice System. For three years, David was extensively involved in developing a detailed reform plan for the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the largest probation department in the country. He also served as the technical assistance provider for the Sierra Health Foundation’s Positive Youth Justice Initiative, providing training and consulting to several California probation departments.
Mr. Muhammad has been the federal court appointed monitor overseeing reforms in the Illinois juvenile justice system in the MH v. Monreal Consent Decree. Mr. Muhammad is also the federal monitor in the Morales Settlement Agreement, which requires the Illinois Parole Review Board and the Illinois Department of Corrections to reform its parole system. David is also a member of the Antelope Valley Monitoring Team which is charged with monitoring the Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department’s implementation of a federal Settlement Agreement. He was recently appointed
The former Chief Probation Officer of the Alameda County (California) Probation Department, David was responsible for overseeing 20,000 people on probation, a staff of 600, and a $90 million budget. In 2010, David was named the Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Probation in New York City, the second largest Probation Department in the country, where he was responsible for overseeing 35,000 people on probation and a staff of 900. David served as the Chief of Committed Services for Washington, DC’s, Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS). His responsibilities at DYRS included 300 staff, a $42 million annual budget, a juvenile institution, and 900 youth committed to his department’s care.
In 2013, Mr. Muhammad was the first Executive Director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) in Los Angeles. ARC has grown to become one of the largest and most prominent service providers and policy advocacy organizations for the formerly incarcerated in California.
While Executive Director of The Mentoring Center in Oakland, Ca., David was contracted by the City of Richmond, CA to help design the Office of Neighborhood Safety, which has since been credited for bringing significant reductions in violence to the city.
As a graduate of Howard University’s School of Communications, David also has an extensive journalism career. David also completed a course on “Systems Dynamics for Senior Managers” at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, MA. In August of 2008, David completed a certificate program on Juvenile Justice Multi-System Integration at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.