Legal Aid Society

Westchester County D.A. Janet DiFiore and Civil Rights Groups Press Albany on Ending Practice of Treating Teens Offenders as Adults

It's a little-known fact that New York is one of only two states that treat 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. That's right, one of only two states. Periodically, there have been efforts to change that law to define adult offenders as those who are 18 and older, but in t ... More >>

Judge Gives Hurricane Sandy Victims in Hotel Program Time to Find Housing

Over the past month, a group of people who lost everything in Hurricane Sandy have been waging a battle with the city. They came from the most traumatized areas, and from the poorest economic backgrounds. The city had given 3,132 evacuees temporary housing in hotels in the aftermath of the storm, bu ... More >>

Do Big NYPD Drug Busts Just Target the Little Fish?

A troubling pattern is emerging around the NYPD's recent "big drug busts." Last month, after years of surveillance, the NYPD concluded that gangs on the Lower East Side had sold "$1.2 million worth of coke in two years." On April 12, the NYPD arrested 41 people from the neighborhood, mostly from Ba ... More >>

Day Before Deadline, Court Blocks Eviction Date for Sandy Victims

On Monday night, a state supreme court ordered that the city temporarily halt its eviction of Hurricane Sandy victims from hotels. Slightly less than 200 households were to face their move-out deadline today, including 125 families that had nowhere to go, and 71 that the Department of Homeless Serv ... More >>

Bloomberg's Sneaky Fix For All Those Stop-and-Frisk Lawsuits

Teens on Rikers To Get Jail Uniforms; DOC Says It'll Reduce Fights; Inmate Advocate Says Benefit "Debatable"

In another of a range of efforts to reduce violence in the city's jail for teenage inmates, the Correction Department is going to require them to wear uniforms, rather than personal clothing. Correction officials say the move will enhance safety and security among the Robert N. Davoren Center's tee ... More >>

Nassau County Jail Suicides Spur New York Civil Liberties Union Lawsuit

An Iraq war vet and inmate at Nassau County Correctional Center committed suicide Feb. 24 -- making him the fifth prisoner to take his own life in the facility since 2010. Seven inmates in total have died in this period, and state authorities have determined that several of these incidents were prev ... More >>

The Constitution Versus Ray Kelly

A new coalition is ready to take its fight to the commissioner

City Council Planning Lawsuit Over Homeless Shelter Policy

City Council plans to try and stop a new policy from the Mayor's administration that would require homeless people to prove they have nowhere else to go before they can be admitted into a shelter. Council Speaker Christine Quinn described the policy as "cruel and punitive"; the pending suit represen ... More >>

NYPD Gives Brooklyn Man Trespassing Charge For Ducking Under an Awning During Today's Rainstorm!

​Earlier today, right around the time that the City Council was holding a hearing on the NYPD's controversial stop and frisk practices, cops slapped a Brooklyn man with a trespassing charge for standing under an awning to get out of the rain. Vincent Mouzon, a 55-year-old telephone pollster w ... More >>

'Worst Landlord' Sam Suzuki Slapped With Arrest Warrant by Housing Court Judge

A Bronx housing court judge has issued an arrest warrant for landlord Sam Suzuki, a member of the Voice's "10 Worst Landlords" list. It was an extremely rare step, but tenants of 1585 East 172nd Street have long suffered from their landlord's neglect. The judge stopped short of ordering the landl ... More >>

Memo to Eliot Spitzer: Get to Work

​It's Eliot Spitzer in Surround-Sound these days. Between the book ("Rough Justice"),the movie (Alex Gibney doc, unfinished cut), and the big Times interview this weekend in which the ex-gov savaged his would-be successor, Andrew Cuomo, it's All Spitzer, All the Time. Which is clearly how the ... More >>

Frigid Outside and No Room at Homeless Inns

Bloomberg 3: No more Mr. Nice Guy​The temperature's dipping into the low 30s today, so we can be can be sure to get more glimpses of life in the Age of Bloomberg like this one, as described in the Legal Aid lawsuit filed yesterday seeking a new court order to force the city to house the homele ... More >>

Bloomberg's Homeless Pledges Fell Far Short

Protesters Say Cops Target Older Gay Men with Bogus Charges at XXX Shops

Photos by Candice M. Giove. In front of a backdrop of hot pink placards - some splashed with hearts and cupids - Robert Pinter, a 53-year-old gay man, recounted the horror of being falsely arrested for prostitution this past October. He is one of many older gay men, activists said, targeted by ... More >>

No More Court Control for Homeless Services, Says City

Bloomberg Writes His Own Report Card

Thankfully, there's no term limit on the Constitution and its protection of students

The State Of the Union Ignores the State of Sub-prime

22 Will Get You 15

What happened when the persistent pickpocket met the hanging Queens judge

Price Your Pork

City Goes Judge Shopping

Held in contempt for convention detentions, the city gets a Pataki court to step in

Bench Pressed

Sliding-Door Lawsuits Keep Organizers Out, Lawsuits In

Letters

The New Bronx Market

After Neighborhood Turnaround, HUD Seeks to Cash Out

Bunny Busters

Kmart Calls Cops When Easter Rabbit Protests Military-Themed Holiday Baskets

Bronx Clash

A Contractor's Commission Payment Sparks Probe

Privacy Meets Public Safety

A 'Pragmatic Progressive' Emerges from Queens

A Perfect Storm

It's Residents Out, Homeless Families in at Troubled Complex

Trash Drive

Hepatitis C in the NYPD

Sick Cops Claim the Department is Dodging the Law to Deny Them Benefits

Four-Room Co-Op in Circa 1900s Walk-Up

Judge Ross vs. Free Speech

Disorderly Conduct by Whom?

Four-Room Co-op in Circa 1900s Walk-up

New York’s Anti-Terror Express

State Pols Ride a Troubling Crime Agenda Toward Re-Election

Amnesty Threat

Housing Authority Asks Residents to Fess Up and Pay

In the Crosshairs

Manhunt Puts Middle Easterners at Mercy of Ordinary Americans

‘A New Form of Slavery’

Equal Protection for Whom?

Park Slope Scramble

Is the 39th CD De Blasio’s to Lose?

Gil Scott-Heron’s Rap

Probable Cause and a Poet’s Problems

Roaming Rikers

Stun Shields, Stray Cats, Buck-Fifties, Boofing: The Top Brass’s Tour of America’s Largest Penal Colony

Letters

Prisoner's Dilemma

Learning the Hard Way at Rikers

System Failure

The Comptroller Says HS Systems Overcharged for Screening Disabled Welfare Recipients. So Why Did the Company Win a Fat New Contract?

Breaking Down Prison Walls

An Organizer Takes His Street Movement to Albany

Shelter Skelter

Homeless Women, Some Physically Disabled, Face Evacuation

Mourning Rush

Cops Bring Tension to the Dorismond Funeral

Giuliani Justice

Arresting the Innocent

Strike Behind Bars

Prisoners Plan a Work Stoppage To Protest Parole Cuts

The Disappeared

Police Brutality and the Mayor

The Cop Gave the Woman He'd Assaulted a False Badge Number