Justice Ambassadors Youth Council Launches 9th Cohort

The ninth cohort of the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council began on Tuesday, October 6, at The Forum at Columbia University. Founded by Jarrell Daniels, Justice Ambassadors brings young people from New York City's most impacted communities together with government officials to learn from one another and co-author policy proposals. This fall's cohort includes youth ambassadors, government ambassadors from city and state agencies and the courts, Columbia Law School students, and students from IE University in Madrid, who join remotely.

Week one
The first session started with introductions and a few icebreakers, then turned to Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model. The group mapped how family, neighborhood, institutions, and broader policy shape a young person's path, from over-policing and access to resources to the labels the media puts on people. The model also frames how the program works: the people and institutions around a young person can be a source of harm, and they can also be a source of support. From the start, youth were invited to hold the government ambassadors in the room accountable and to make sure their own voices stayed at the center.

On Thursday, October 8, the cohort visited Manhattan Criminal Court in downtown manhattan. In the morning, we sat in on Judge Biben's Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) court, where the youth watched a judge speak directly with participants about their progress and explain what was at stake for them. "Progress, not perfection" came up more than once. Afterward, Judge Marva Brown took the group through the arraignment part and then hosted everyone for lunch in her chambers. Judge Brown, a former public defender elected to the bench out of Brooklyn, is herself a graduate of last year's JA cohort. She spoke openly about her path to the bench, the backgrounds most judges come from, and why stable housing matters, and she answered the youth's questions about arrests and the impacts on the rest of someone's life while not being its final definition.

Week two
On October 13, Professor Geraldine Downey led a session on trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), covering how chronic stress affects the body and why protective factors matter: adversity is not destiny. The group connected the material back to the ecological model, naming the policies and conditions that shaped their own lives. Participants then shared a treasured item, something that holds meaning for them, in a circle held in confidence. Jarrell Daniels closed the evening by asking the youth to name their "why" and a call to action; to see themselves as a think tank for policy change, not participants in a program.

On Thursday, October 15, the cohort visited Pathways to Public Safety at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Lauren Curatolo and Christian Gist, both Justice Ambassadors graduates, and Toni Mardirossian spent two hours with the youth ambassadors. They walked through the office's continuum of care, from neighborhood navigators with lived experience, to Reset and Rapid Reset, which connect people to services before a case is ever filed, to court-based navigators who make sure people released from court leave with food, transportation, and a way to get to treatment or housing. For the youth, it filled in what happens around the arraignments they had watched the week before. They also asked hard questions, including how the culture of prosecution shapes the people who work inside it, and got direct answers. The youth drug court and the Emerging Adult Court were not in session that afternoon, but Judge Wang, who is the presiding judge for the emerging adult part, will be speaking with the cohort at a later session as well as for their visit next week to the Midtown Community Court.

Graduates and the ecology of support
Both site visits were hosted, in part, by Justice Ambassadors graduates: Judge Brown from last year's cohort, and Lauren and Christian at the DA's Office. Each cohort adds people inside the courts, agencies, and community who, ideally, return to open their doors to the next one, so that the circle of support around young people in the program keeps growing.

The cohort will continue meeting on Tuesdays, with site visits on Thursdays, and will present its policy proposals at graduation on December 8 (at The Forum at 125th St and Broadway).