OUR TEAM

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.

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.

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.

Hilary Bass is the Senior Manager of Bay Area Initiatives at NICJR. In this role, she manages NICJR’s projects and direct service programs in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Neighborhood Opportunity and Accountability Board (NOAB) Initiative. Hilary is a dynamic public sector leader with a proven track record in driving results through innovative public safety initiatives, community development, and strategic collaboration. Known for her expertise in creative placemaking and community engagement, Hilary is dedicated to establishing vibrant public spaces and improved public systems that foster positive societal change and long-term improvements in public safety.

Prior to NICJR, Hilary served as Executive Director of the Alameda County Deputy Sheriffs’ Activities League (DSAL), leading the development and daily oversight of the organization. Under her leadership, DSAL grew to become a 70-person organization with a nearly $3 million budget. Over the course of 12 years, she secured over $30 million in funding for impactful community-based projects, shaping outcomes in public safety, public health, and economic and community development. Her efforts with DSAL included working from within the Sheriff’s Office to develop a hyper-local food system in Alameda County as a strategy to address economic development for the reentry community while simultaneously reducing food insecurity and increasing health outcomes for thousands of county residents. Her work also included the development of a free athletics department serving the low-income youth and families of unincorporated Alameda County as a strategy to prevent crime by building healthy people. Additionally, she brought in resources for local community development initiatives such as murals on 11 facades of small businesses to make neighborhoods safer and help the business community thrive. Through all of this work, she has developed strong expertise in operations, program development, and fundraising as well as excellent skills in building positive relationships with diverse stakeholders.

Hilary holds a degree in Sociology and Urban Studies from Boston University and was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2018 as an Emerging Leader.

Amy Arthur is NICJR’s Content Development Specialist. Amy is passionate about harnessing the power of the written word to fund innovative programming and accessibly communicate research to decisionmakers and the communities they serve. A seasoned writer and editor with more than eight years of experience developing winning grant proposals and RFP responses, Amy’s writing has led to grant awards totaling more than $122 million from foundations and city, state, and federal entities.

As NICJR’s lead writer and editor, Amy partners with staff across the organization to craft compelling proposals, communicate progress to funders, and develop reports and other deliverables that disseminate NICJR’s research and share lessons learned from the implementation of direct service initiatives such as the Neighborhood Opportunity and Accountability Board.

Prior to joining the NICJR team, Amy served as Associate Director of Business Development for Resource Development Associates, a California-based consulting firm dedicated to social justice and equity. At RDA, she bolstered organizational sustainability and growth by leading the competitive proposal development process. She also led grant writing and fund development capacity building contracts with numerous government and nonprofit agencies. Prior to joining RDA, Amy managed fundraising and communications for Rebuilding Together San Francisco and worked as a member of the development and communications team for New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, where she developed winning proposals both for property acquisition and funding for new construction and critical home repair.

Amy holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry from Johns Hopkins University. Before entering the nonprofit sector, Amy taught composition and creative writing at Hopkins University and Goucher College. She also served as an Editorial Assistant for the Hopkins Review and as Summer Director of the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference. Her poems and literary criticism have appeared in the Birmingham Poetry Review, Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry, Literary Matters, Blackbird, and elsewhere.

Jeremy Page is the Justice Reform Program Manager at NICJR. In this role, he assists in the coordination and management of communication, TA, and training for various juvenile justice initiatives while also supporting NICJR’s participation in local and national advocacy efforts.

Jeremy is a leader whose mission in life is to move the needle on criminal and juvenile justice reform. He has a deep passion for working with our youth, especially those who are system impacted. Over the last decade, his advocacy career has included working with the child welfare system, system-impacted adults and youth, and those who are impacted by mental health and substance use concerns. These experiences contribute to Jeremy’s philosophy around prevention and intervention within the justice system, alternatives to incarceration, and reducing recidivism.

Before joining NICJR, Jeremy served first as a Bail Disruptor and then as Operations Manager for the Ohio sites of The Bail Project (TBP). In addition to working on the front lines, he led two teams to secure the freedom of over 2,000 individuals in the State of Ohio who were detained pretrial. He also ensured the coordination of services to support court return and eventual case closure. In his work with TBP, Jeremy utilized qualitative and quantitative data to encourage stakeholders to shift practices regarding the use of cash bail to better serve the people of Ohio. He also worked with the Ohio Legislature to advocate for statewide bail reform.

Previously, Jeremy worked as a Family Service Worker with Hamilton County Job and Family Services, providing case planning services for families who were involved with the child welfare system. He later transitioned to a Child-Specific Recruiter role within the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program, where he worked to establish permanency for children in the custody of the county.

Jeremy is an alumnus of Northern Kentucky University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice with a concentration in Social Work, and Eastern Kentucky University, where he received his Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice Policy and Leadership with a concentration in Juvenile Justice. He is a graduate of the Urban League African American Leadership Development Program Class 28 and a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. Jeremy recently completed a year-long fellowship with Feedback Labs as a Feedback Champion.

Ali Garry is a Senior Life Coach within NICJR’s Neighborhood Opportunity and Accountability Board program. In this role, Ali manages intake of youth referrals from law enforcement; organizes NOAB hearings; connects youth, families, and victims to community-based services and interventions; coordinates with service providers to track youth outcomes and achievement; and provides one-on-one support to NOAB participants.

Ali brings decades of experience providing life coaching, mentoring, training, and case management services to Oakland youth. For example, as a Life Coach and Case Manager for Community and Youth Outreach, Ali partnered with the Oakland Unified School District to provide intensive case management services to youth being released from the Alameda County Juvenile Hall.

Ali is also the founder of Stop-the-Shooting, Start-the-Hooping, a local summer basketball league that serves as a violence prevention program for high-risk youth ages 14–25. He has personally served over 400 youth through this program, which he founded in the memory of his older brother, Jamal Garry Muhammad, who was murdered in the “Murder Dubs” section of Oakland. Because of his deep experience serving high-risk youth in Oakland, Ali has built up a strong network of relationships with community members, business owners, and governmental agencies that allows him to effectively connect young people to resources and supports.

Ems Schnee is the Operations Manager for NICJR. In this role, they support project team logistics, contract management, and human resources to maintain efficient organizational operations. They bring over nine years of experience in the nonprofit sector with a strong focus on criminal justice reform. Their background reflects a deep commitment to reforming justice systems that unjustly deny individuals fair treatment, particularly as relates to the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, family structure, health, class, and ability.

Before joining NICJR, Ems served as the Senior Grants Specialist for the Aspen Institute, where they honed their expertise in federal grants and project management. Previously, they worked as Development Project Manager and Board Liaison at The Marshall Project, where they managed grants and donor relations and executed quarterly board meetings. Ems also served as Project Coordinator at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, focusing on trauma-informed responses to violence against women and gender-based violence. Additionally, they worked at the Human Rights Campaign as the Community and Volunteer Relations Coordinator, concentrating on volunteer and board member engagement.

Ems holds a Master of Science degree in Justice, Law, and Criminology from American University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Ems is excited to leverage their skills in operations, contract management, event coordination, and relationship building to further NICJR’s mission.

Darcell Harrison is the Violence Reduction Program Coordinator for NICJR. For more than 17 years, Darcell has worked on the frontlines of violence reduction, re-entry, and youth development. Darcell has served in several capacities, including mentor, case manager, life coach, violence interrupter, youth workshop facilitator and he has spent several years as a Life Coach supervisor in Oakland’s successful Gun Violence Reduction Strategy. Prior to coming to NICJR, Darcell served as Program Supervisor at Community and Youth Outreach in Oakland.

Darcell has been directly impacted by violence and the criminal justice system, having been seriously injured as a victim of violence and having been formerly incarcerated. For nearly two decades, Darcell has been an example and source of inspiration for others through his personal transformation and his exceptional work as a mentor, violence intervention specialist, and supervisor.

At NICJR, Darcell provides leadership, training, and technical assistance for organizations across the country. He leads Life Coaching and violence intervention training as well as supervises a team of Life Coaches in the Bay Area.

Isabel Tayag Parker  is the Operations and Communications Coordinator for NICJR. In this role, she leads the graphic design of violence reduction and justice reform deliverables and content, coordinates and executes communications strategies, and manages the organization’s recruitment process.

Isabel graduated from the University of San Francisco where she received a B.A. in Sociology with an emphasis in Criminology, Law and Society. Prior to joining NICJR, Isabel was a Policy Fellow with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and Digital Organizing Fellow with Justice Teams Network (JTN), where she supported grassroots organizing efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Isabel also serves as a Project Director for No More Tears (NMT), a violence and crime prevention program founded by incarcerated men at San Quentin State Prison. At NMT, Isabel leads the infrastructure and capacity building efforts of the organization as it works to expand its reentry, community, and youth programming.

Isabel’s passion lies at the intersections of media and mass incarceration, and she hopes to help organizations like NICJR shift cultural narratives around crime, policing and incarceration.

Kyra Leanani Cereola serves as Executive Assistant to the NICJR Executive Director. In this role, they provide administrative support to the Executive Director and general support to the NICJR leadership team and Board of Directors. Kyra is passionate about radical honesty and meeting people where they are, drawing on a background in feminism and disability justice to tailor communication to each team member.

Before joining NICJR, Kyra worked as an Events Coordinator for Disability Voices United, a disability advocacy nonprofit in California. In this role, they successfully organized large-scale virtual and in-person events; provided extensive IT support; and managed the organization’s communications. Kyra also supported legislative advocacy in this role, organizing and implementing meeting protocols that ultimately led to the passage of AB 1147, the Disability, Accountability, and Transparency Act. As a liaison between California legislators and disability community advocates and stakeholders, Kyra facilitated impactful meetings that drove significant policy changes.

Kyra graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Feminist Studies. Their academic research focused on LGBTQIA+ rights, accessibility in infrastructure, racial disparities in education, and the pragmatic applications of Black Feminist Science Fiction.

Nehali Vishwanath is a Senior Policy Analyst at NICJR. . In this role, she manages the Youth Data and Intervention Initiative, an innovative project that focuses on identifying and addressing risk factors for gun violence among youth. She also conducts data analysis and develops reports in support of other NICJR research projects that uplift community-based interventions and policies within criminal justice reform, juvenile justice, and violence reduction.

Before coming to NICJR, Nehali was a Public Affairs Analyst at Becton Dickinson (BD) on their Government Affairs team. While at BD, she developed policy surrounding healthcare safety and technology, maintained their internal communications network, and helped foster a working relationship with government officials.

Nehali is passionate about advancing evidence-based policies and practices that target the underlying social determinants of health in vulnerable populations to sustain long-term improvement in violence-related outcomes.

Nehali holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Public Health degree from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she was a Bloomberg Fellow.

Rachel Bowns is a Policy Analyst for NICJR, where she contributes to research efforts on justice policy, gun violence reduction, and the violence intervention work of community-based organizations. In this role, she collects and analyzes relevant data, contributes to publications, and supports advocacy efforts.

Prior to joining NICJR, Rachel worked with the Institute for Justice Research and Development at Florida State University. She supported data collection efforts for prison re-entry programing research, interviewing currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and providing data management and monitoring support. Rachel previously supported interdisciplinary research efforts at Florida State University and University of Missouri for research related to mass shootings, young adult alcohol use, and trauma-informed care. Rachel has also worked with victims of crime, at-risk youth and families, and children and families involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in volunteer, case management, and therapeutic capacities.

Rachel’s experience working with justice-impacted individuals has made her passionate about reducing and healing trauma in the criminal justice system through evidence-based policy and practice. Her research interests are centered around victim-offender overlap, trauma in the criminal justice system, and translational criminology.

Rachel holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, an Master of Science degree in Criminology, and a Master of Social Work degree from Florida State University. She is pursuing her PhD in Criminology at Georgia State University.