The seemingly inevitable became reality Tuesday when a judge announced that Rikers Island would be placed under federal receivership, removing the city from control of the troubled correctional facility.
Chief U.S. Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled that she would appoint a “remediation manager” to resolve all issues that led Swain to find the city in contempt of numerous standing orders last November to reform the various problems on Rikers Island that have contributed to “the ongoing violations of the constitutional rights of people in custody in the New York City jails.”
“The Court expects that the Remediation Manager and the Commissioner of the Department of Correction will work as collaboratively as possible to achieve remediation of the Contempt Provisions and compliance with the Consent Judgment, including by building upon the progress that has been achieved since the current Commissioner took office,” Swain wrote.
Swain’s decision came after the city and the federal government presented plans for receivership before a Jan. 14 deadline of this year. She noted in her ruling that “the use of force state and other rates of violence, self-harm and deaths in custody are demonstrably worse than when” the consent judgment in the landmark Nunez vs. City of New York case that sparked the push for reform on Rikers Island came down in 2015.
Indeed, five inmates on Rikers Island have died so far in 2025.
Mayor Eric Adams, in responding to the May 13 decision, acknowledged that “the problems on Rikers are decades in the making,” but that “they didn’t just start Jan. 1, 2022” — the first day of his mayoralty.
“The federal judge made a determination that they want to do something else, and they don’t like what we’re doing. It’s a federal judge. We’re going to follow the rules,” he said, but also noted that Judge Swain ought to look at some of the laws which “state that we can’t handcuff dangerous inmates when we’re transporting them.”
The mayor was referring to a law passed by the City Council last year banning the use of solitary confinement in city jails that he claims prevents the Correction Department from handcuffing detainees when transporting them.
Adams also said that the Rikers Island closure plan which the City Council and de Blasio administration agreed upon in 2019 also prevented the city from making appropriate capital improvements to the jail complex. By city law, Rikers must be shut down by 2027 and replaced with community-based jails, but it is unclear whether that deadline will be met – or how the new receivership order impacts it.
At an unrelated event Tuesday, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said that the new leadership on Rikers should further segue into shutting the island down and meeting the “common goal” of closure by the 2027 deadline.
“We have seen resistance on the other side of City Hall so far to work with this council to ensure that we are as close to our closure deadline as possible, of 2027,” the speaker said. “So we hope now with this leadership coming in that we will be able to accomplish that goal of collaboration and working towards that goal.”
What Rikers Island ‘remediation manager’ will do
Two years ago, the city and federal Rikers monitor Steve Martin agreed on an action plan of reform to improve conditions on Rikers. While acknowledging that Correction Commissioner Lynette Maginley-Liddle has been “working collaboratively with the monitor to move the agency forward and committed to reform,” her actions alone were not enough “to tip this factor against the appointment of a receiver.”
As Swain ordered in her May 13 ruling, the independent “remediation manager” “will be appointed by and answerable only to the court,” and “will have the responsibility and authority to take all necessary steps to achieve Substantial Compliance” with the contempt provisions she handed down last November.
The remediation manager will be fully independent of the city and federal governments, but Swain asked all parties involved in the case to provide her a list of four recommended managers for her consideration before Aug. 29. The judge will review the applicants and then appoint a remediation manager, who will then have three years to bring Rikers Island into compliance.
Swain will charge the remediation manager with:
- Implementing changes to all Correction Department policies, procedures, protocols, and systems connected with the Rikers contempt findings.
- Reviewing, investigating and taking disciplinary or corrective action to violations of DOC policies and use of force directives.
- Hiring, promoting, and deploying staff to ensure effective coverage in Rikers Island housing areas.
- Participating in negotiating or renegotiating contracts for essential equipment, supplies and other services.
Criminal justice reformists praised Swain’s ruling as a major first step toward holding the city accountable for degradation and death on Rikers Island.
“For years, the New York City Department of Correction has failed to follow federal court orders to enact meaningful reforms, allowing violence, disorder, and systemic dysfunction to persist in the jails,” said Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, and Debra Greenberger, partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, in a joint statement. “This appointment marks a critical turning point—an overdue acknowledgment that City leadership has proven unable to protect the safety and constitutional rights of incarcerated individuals.”
