{"id":327818,"date":"2026-08-23T13:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/327818\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T13:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:56:10","slug":"former-gang-member-and-prosecutor-who-put-him-in-prison-team-up-to-fight-street-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/327818\/","title":{"rendered":"Former gang member and prosecutor who put him in prison team up to fight street violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jarrell Daniels <\/a>found an ally in his fight to tamp down gang violence in the most unlikely of people \u2014 the prosecutor who put him behind bars for six years.<\/p>\n

After being convicted for shooting a rival gang member, Daniels, now 31, is a PhD student<\/a> in psychology and social intervention at New York University. He\u2019s also the founder of Columbia University\u2019s Justice Ambassadors Youth Council<\/a>, a three-month program where young adults, particularly those involved in gangs, work with public officials to push reforms to the city\u2019s justice system.<\/p>\n

And he has a TED Talk<\/a> that has been viewed more than 2 million times.<\/p>\n

At Daniels\u2019 side is Nigel Farinha,<\/a> the Office of Special Narcotics prosecutor who worked on his case and helped get him convicted.<\/p>\n

The two renewed acquaintances at a 2018 symposium on racial disparities in policing and have since appeared together numerous times. During their public discussions, they never immediately reveal how they first met. When they do, audience members, both said, are usually stunned that the two are partnering up, much less talking to one another.<\/p>\n

Daniels and Farinha have also both confronted their share of skeptics about the odds of turning around those who have been imprisoned as well as those heading in that direction.<\/p>\n

\"JarrellJarrell Daniels, left, and Nigel Farinha, a prosecutor at the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor. (Photo courtesy of the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think that any time law enforcement wants to do something that they\u2019ve never done before that\u2019s community facing, I think people should embrace it,\u201d Daniels said during an interview at NYU. \u201cAt least give them a chance. I always tell people who challenge me, \u2018Why do I work with prosecutors?\u2019\u00a0 And I say, \u2018Listen, I will work with prosecutors who want to make change.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Farinha, meanwhile, knows his background and race \u2014 he\u2019s from Hollis, Queens, and, like Daniels, is Black \u2014 will only go so far when talking to at-risk teens and young men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognize that there are parts of the community that aren\u2019t going to listen to me, in my suit and my pocket square,\u201d Farinha said. \u201cI\u2019m just not going to connect with them\u2026 but there are people that Jerrell can\u2019t reach, who are skeptical of him, who think, \u2018Wow \u2014 former gang member. Does he have some ulterior motives?\u2019 We\u2019ve seen that story before playout with other people who aren\u2019t as sincere as Jarrell, and I get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to recognize that we both want the same thing. We want to save lives, we want more safety for our communities, we want better experiences, a better outcome for people of color who are most impacted by gang violence and most affected by this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniels said some see him as a \u201cunicorn,\u201d but he sees himself differently: he\u2019s someone who wants to show that anyone with access to resources and opportunities can excel.<\/p>\n

In September 2011, Daniels, then a 17-year-old dropout and a member of the Bloods, was walking to the laundromat with his sister when rival gang members approached her \u2014 mistaking her for Daniels\u2019 other sister, who was also caught up in the streets. Daniels, slashed in the face as he tried to protect his sister, pulled his gun and shot the attacker, seriously wounding him.<\/p>\n

Daniels got away, then took a sharp turn, enlisting in Job Corps, where he studied masonry and later got his first job at McDonald\u2019s. But the law caught up to him, and he was indicted in late 2012 as part of a larger gang takedown.<\/p>\n

Daniels later pleaded guilty to assault and was shipped off to prison, but shortly before he was released in early 2018, he was transferred to Queensboro Correctional Facility in Long Island City and signed up for a prison college course. The course was taught by a Columbia professor who brought together eight inmates and eight Manhattan assistant district attorneys. Three of the ADAs, amazingly to Daniels, were Black.<\/p>\n

The idea that sprouted was both simple and profound: these two groups can work together to help those about to leave prison make a smoother transition and not re-offend.<\/p>\n

\"JarrellJarrell Daniels is pictured near NYU in Manhattan on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (Gardiner Anderson \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Hooked from the start, Daniels took a most unusual step and returned twice a week to prison after his release so he could finish the course.<\/p>\n

The results, he said, were tangible, as suggestions he and the other inmates made became reality: the creation of a Department of Motor Vehicles office inside the Manhattan state parole office, as well as internet access at Queensboro for inmates who are close to being released so they could apply for jobs and Medicare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat seems like an obvious thing,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to get out soon or she\u2019s going to get out soon. You don\u2019t want them to reoffend. One way to do it is if they have a job, but I can\u2019t work on getting a job until I get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the way it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Professor Geraldine Downey, who runs Columbia University\u2019s Center for Justice<\/a> and taught the Queensboro course, said Daniels is \u201cextraordinarily impactful when he talks about his life\u2019s experiences,\u201d but she is not surprised by what he has accomplished.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the opportunity of an education, people can turn their lives around,\u201d said Downey, who last year spoke with Daniels in Belfast at a conference hosted by the Northern Ireland Prison Service<\/a>. \u201cThey have the same kind of potential as the students of Columbia. They just didn\u2019t have the opportunities in the neighborhoods in which they grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniels\u2019 Justice Ambassadors program is one of many supported by the Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice, or MOCJ.\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

Another initiative is an ongoing randomized control trial that studies one of the city\u2019s most problematic demographics \u2014 repeat offenders who commit an outsized chunk of violent crime \u2014 and connects them with the services the city hopes lead to a drop in recidivism.<\/p>\n

\"DeannaDeanna Logan, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, is pictured in 2022. (Gregg Vigliotti for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Since the program started in January 2024, more than 2,000 participants \u2014 all of whom have at least one pending felony case \u2014 have received some form of counseling, with many others getting help with other issues, such as housing, said MOCJ Director Deanna Logan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing people not only staying with their provider but engaging in the underlying services and \u2014 guess what \u2014 not re-offending,\u201d Logan said. \u201cWe are actually looking at individuals. We\u2019re creating, much like students, individual plans for the person.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Brooklyn, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez is taking a different approach to fight recidivism with Project Restore<\/a> \u2014 trying to steer at-risk youth and young adults away from gang life before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

Unlike alternatives to incarceration programs, Project Restore deals with those who have no pending cases but are showing signs of heading in that direction: those not working, not in school, sleeping all day, and hanging out all night.<\/p>\n

\"BrooklynBrooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez speaks to the media at Brooklyn Supreme Court in New York on Thursday, July 16, 2026. (Gardiner Anderson \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not working with young men who have cases,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cWe are working with young men who don\u2019t have cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s purely preventional,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jarrell Daniels found an ally in his fight to tamp down gang violence in the most unlikely of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[85,267,75,84,83,9,24,264,10,12,63],"class_list":["post-327818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}