"It was gross. I did not want to do it," Randy Estevez, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at In-Tech Academy in the South Bronx, tells the Daily News. Estevez is referring to his detention punishment last fall, when he and another student were allegedly assigned janitorial duties on two days, with tasks including cleaning up feces. Now the Department of Education is investigating the school, but In-Tech's principal is all like whatever: "Someone's on a mission. This is so untrue," says Principal Rose Fairweather-Clunie. more ›

A Brooklyn family has filed a claim of notice that they plan to sue the City, after 14-year-old Matthew Alba (pictured) received a broken wrist and a cut chin allegedly at the hands of a dean at PS 369 in Downtown Brooklyn. In a one-sided account, Matthew Alba told the NY Post that he had arrived at detention when an assistant dean "went ballistic" on him and grabbed his hand, holding it tightly for three minutes as he berated the young teenager.

"He said, 'You ain't gonna be nothing. You ain't gonna go nowhere. You're gonna be here your whole life.' " more ›

The notorious Brooklyn House of Detention – immortalized by everyone from the Beastie Boys to Jonathan Lethem – has been closed since 2003, but plans to reopen the jail at twice its previous size are still moving forward. Last year many newcomers to the steadily gentrifying neighborhood decried plans to bring back the detention center, located at the intersection of Atlantic and Smith. more ›