Organized Opposition to House of D Plan Grows
Dozens of Boerum Hill stores and lampposts have started sporting “Stop the Jail” posters, markers of a new group’s efforts to protest the city’s plan to reopen and expand the House of Detention on Smith and Atlantic. The group, Stop BHOD, has launched a website saying it’s comprised of residents from the Brooklyn Heights, Boerum…
Dozens of Boerum Hill stores and lampposts have started sporting “Stop the Jail” posters, markers of a new group’s efforts to protest the city’s plan to reopen and expand the House of Detention on Smith and Atlantic. The group, Stop BHOD, has launched a website saying it’s comprised of residents from the Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods. Stop BHOD’s mission is twofold, according to the site: “Stop BHOD strongly opposes the reopening and expansion of the BHOD. We have made it our mission to stop the misguided plan to place a large prison in a thriving neighborhood with a large community of young children. We have also made it our mission to expose the inaccuracies of the Department of Corrections, a city agency more concerned with control over the site than with economics and the best interests of the community and city as a whole.” Among other things, the group says Corrections is planning a jail with cells that don’t “meet minimum federal or state standards of habitability. Some cells are 40 square feet, half the 80 sqaure foot size recommended by the American Correctional Association.” In March, an entity called the Brooklyn HOD Community Stakeholders Group launched that also opposes the jail expansion.
Stop BHOD [Official Site]
Brooklyn HOD Community Stakeholders Group [Official Site]
‘Stop the Jail’ Movement Begins on Atlantic Ave. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Locals Put Heat On City For Ignoring House of D Plan [Brownstoner]
City Looks to Supersize the House of D [Brownstoner]
2:43, you could get mugged on Park Avenue at noon in the early 80s. You could get jumped outside a cop station. Weak correlative.
So what has been functioning as a house of D (versus a prison) in the intervening years that the HOD has been closed? I agree that it’s efficient to have defendants, er, stroll across the street to their court date. What system is in place at the moment, I’m wondering?
Though I agree with montrose, I think he’s showing a lot of chutzpah saying that the downtown area should do its civic duty, give his attempts to keep the intake center out of the bedford shelter. The same data that was used to make the case against the intake center shows that downtown area has the second highest concentration of social service organizations in brooklyn.
as you would say, montrose, we’ve done our share.
Johnife – So the Stakeholders Group which is opposed to the DOC expansion are “recent arrivals with a sense of self entitlement.” Do some homework before you spout such ignorance. And what is your definition of a “new arrival”. Because you did not hear residents whining about the HOD in the past means we should roll over and accept it without challenging the DOC. Why do you do you insist on labeling people and putting them in your ideological buckets.I have been here a long time but never was so presumptuos to believe I have more rights than others because I have lived here longer. One can only question your motivation or sense of self for attacking “the new arrivals”. Doing so does not make me feel better or change anything on the ground. It’s just noise to distract from the real issue. Who said Rikers is the only alternative. Many of the prisoners will be bussed to the Supreme Court on Jay St. Not all of them will be strolling unseen through the tunnel to the Criminal Court.
Johnife – you may get a second chance. Perhaps your son or your wife will get the additional thrill of being verbally harassed by them as he passes by on the way to school or she is on her way to work. I remember that experience vividly and I would not wish that on anyone.
‘The presumption that the DOC has done a fair analysis is naive at best.’
I don’t believe the city has done a proper alternatives analysis at all, 255.
Brooklynnative — they couldn’t double the size of the cells, because then it would half the population and make it an inefficient facility.
I haven’t seen it mentioned so I’m not sure whether everyone’s aware that this is a house of detention rather than a jail. Somebody gets arrested and is thrown in the slammer pending his case being heard at the courthouse across the street in the next few days. If guilty he gets transferred to Rikers (or wherever).
Can you imagine the logistical, economic, and environmental impact if, instead of this pretty efficient system, arrestees were bussed out to Rikers, lawyers and family members had to get all the way out there in the pre-trial period, and then the prisoners had to be bussed back to the Brooklyn Courthouse for trial? It just doesn’t make sense.
Sure you could say, “move the courthouse as well as the HOD out to Rikers or some equally desolate location”. but how would that fly with all the judges, district attorneys etc.? Not too well I suspect.
I didn’t hear the people who lived in the surrounding residential areas during the years when the HOD was fully operational perpetually whining about its existence. The only thing that’s really changed is the overblown sense of self entitlement of the more recent arrivals.
This isn’t really a NIMBY issue is it? The alternative to the BHOD is Rikers, which, if I know my NYC geography, is an island and probably not in anyone’s backyard. The DOC originally closed the BHOD in favor of expanding Rikers. So the real options are (1) in my backyard, or (2) on an island with nothing else on it. Gee, that’s a pretty tough choice.
Labeling people in the community (1:50pm) for walking down the street stupid shows an incredible lack of consideration for your fellow resident. I have to ask – Why are you afraid of these prisoners? The quickness of labeling this a NIMBY argument is alarming and disappointing but gives some a sense of moral superiority. The jail does not have to be in someone elses backyard. There are numerous alternatives that could be considered that would place this in an industrial area, an exisitng Federal facility or perhaps DOC should have spent the time and resources to upgrade Rikers. The presumption that they have done all of this is wrong. They closed it because it would save the DOC money and be more efficient – so they claimed. We pay tax dollars for the NYPD to protect us not the DOC. The idea that having enhanced presence of Marshals, Correction Officers, etc., in the hood as a rationale to accept a doubling of the size of the jail is specious. As a “long time resident” I believe we share more than a fair share of the city services. When do you say ENOUGH IN MY BACKYARD. The presumption that the DOC has done a fair analysis is naive at best. Is any expansion of city services in an already city service saturated area the correct thing to do beacuse it is already there? C’mon people – roll over and play dead for the DOC. How about a nuclear facility, a landfill or maybe a basketball stadium. By the way, their planning on spending a 1/2 billion dollars just to build the expansion which does not include upgrading the existing cell size or facility. Sounds like a real bargain for taxpayers.