In December 1976, Paul Pitts was with a group of men who shot and killed a customer during a Harlem supermarket robbery. He was convicted of murder and did a 14 year bid upstate, getting paroled in 1993. (A prior sex assault charge against him was dismissed before the murder case.) During his time in prison, Pitts found religion, and subsequently changed his name to Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid. For the past few years he's been paid $49,471 a year to serve as a Muslim chaplain for the Department of Correction, but yesterday he was arrested once again, this time for trying to bring three metal blades and a pair of scissors into the Manhattan Detention Complex at 125 White Street. more ›

The Department of Corrections spoke with us today to clarify that "there is no timetable" for the reopening and expansion of the "House of D" in Downtown Brooklyn reported on yesterday. The original assertion that it would reopen shortly came from a Daily News claim that a letter to the state from the DOC stated the jail would reopen in a few months. more ›

Even though the area once home to the House of D is now better known as the House of TJ's, City Councilman David Yassky and Controller William Thompson are still trying to block the city from the reopening and expansion of a jail in Downtown Brooklyn that has been closed since 2003. The two filed a lawsuit against the city trying to stop $430 million deal planned by the Bloomberg administration to add 720 beds to the the Brooklyn House of Detention in a move they say is a "waste of taxpayer money and would have a destructive effect on the local economy.". The suit claims that the city "secretively and illegally" re-populated the jail when it sent 31 prisoners there over the weekend in order to claim that it never closed. The Dept. of Corrections says it would like to have the jail reopened by early next year. 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 ›