A federal judge has made a historic decision to take control of the Rikers Island jail complex away from the New York City government. An independent official will be appointed to run the jails instead. This comes after years of advocacy and court battles, during which the city has repeatedly failed to show improvement in safety or living conditions behind bars.
On May 13, Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled that she will appoint an outside administrator to resolve ongoing constitutional violations. Her 77-page decision explained that a new “remediation manager” would have the authority to rewrite procedures and rules, hire staff and take disciplinary action against employees who violate use-of-force policies.
“As the record in this case demonstrates, the current rates of use of force, stabbings and slashings, fights, assaults on staff, and in-custody deaths remain extraordinarily high, and there has been no substantial reduction in the risk of harm currently facing those who live and work in the Rikers Island jails,” Judge Swain wrote.
A remediation manager differs from an independent receiver in name, but the judge emphasized it will work much the same in practice. The Legal Aid Society, representing plaintiffs in the legal case against the city, celebrated the ruling as a win. Per the judge’s order, the city will have to work with the manager to reform the jails, with the manager having “ultimate authority.”
Judge Swain ordered the plaintiffs and the city government to propose four candidates each for the position by August 29. She will ultimately choose which candidate to appoint. She rejected the city’s pleas to keep current NYC Corrections Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie in place as a “compliance director,” though Maginley-Liddie will continue to work with the incoming remediation manager.
Mayor Eric Adams (D) said after the decision that he would follow whatever Swain ordered, but sought to deflect blame from his own administration. “The problems at Rikers are decades in the making. We finally got stability,” he said.
“It is a drastic and necessary measure to save lives. The independent receiver must move swiftly and should be bound to the city’s legal mandate to shut Rikers. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Melanie Dominguez and Yonah Zeitz, co-directors of the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice, which has advocated for the rights of detainees and to shut Rikers down, criticized Adams’ record while welcoming the judge’s decision.
“For decades, New Yorkers, including our members, have experienced the dangerous and deadly conditions at Rikers,” they said in a statement. “Instead of following the law to shutter Rikers by 2027, Mayor Adams has worked to keep Rikers open. And during his administration, conditions at Rikers have worsened. Nearly 40 people have died since Adams took office … Receivership is a tool of last resort. In this instance, it is a drastic and necessary measure to save lives. The independent receiver must move swiftly and should be bound to the city’s legal mandate to shut Rikers. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Nearly 15 years of legal battles have preceded this move. In 2011, a group of teenagers filed suit against the city, alleging that corrections officers severely beat them in areas of the jail shielded from video cameras. In 2015, the city agreed to settle the case, entering a court-ordered settlement to reform safety and use-of-force policies, install new surveillance cameras, and appoint an independent monitor to assess the city’s progress.
The independent monitor repeatedly reported back to the court that the city was failing to address persistent problems related to safety for incarcerated people and guards, provision of health care and other issues. In November 2024, Judge Swain warned the city that she would consider putting the jail under an independent receiver, finding it in contempt for failing to implement changes on Rikers.
The 413-acre jail complex, located on the island in the East River, has a long history of abuse and neglect. In October 2019, the New York City Council voted to close the facility by December 31, 2026. Included in that resolution was a plan to build a series of new “borough-based” jails around the city as replacements. Mayor Adams promised while campaigning for office that he would honor the council’s commitment to close Rikers.
But as Adams nears the end of his term, he has failed to fulfill that promise—and instead, overseen an increase in the Rikers population, making it impossible to close the jails on the scheduled timeline.
In March, local outlet The City reported that the jail’s population had risen to over 7,000, the highest since 2019. It’s far above the city’s mandated targets, and the population would need to decrease by several thousand people in order to follow the plan to transfer those who are left to other jails. Construction of the new borough jails is also far behind schedule, and not expected to be completed until at least 2032.
Photograph (cropped) of Rikers Island by US Geological Survey via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
