Mamdani wants plans for Rikers Island that include solitary confinement ban

Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order extending the long-running state of emergency on Rikers Island that allows the Department of Correction to ignore rules dictating safety conditions and solitary confinement limitations.

But unlike past extensions, Mamdani is pushing officials to develop a plan to come into compliance with those regulations within 45 days.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency in 2021 for the sprawling jail complex on Rikers, which former Mayor Eric Adams extended every five days throughout his term.

While there is a state of emergency on Rikers, the city Department of Correction is given permission to not follow certain rules, called Minimum Standards , meant regulate jail conditions and the rights of incarcerated people, as well as Local Law 42 of 2024, which essentially bans solitary confinement.

“What we are directing our administration to do is to develop a plan to actually be in compliance with the law,” Mamdani told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. “We are looking to bring an end to the era where city government would simply extend something every five days without any plan of what compliance can look like.”

Mamdani set a Feb. 19 deadline for correction officials to come forward with a compliance plan.

In a statement on the executive order, Mamdani blamed the Adams administration for creating conditions that all but forced him to maintain the state of emergency on the island.

“I was elected because of my values, and my promise to always be honest with New Yorkers — and now is a moment for blunt truths,” Mamdani said. “The previous administration’s refusal to meet their legal obligations on Rikers has left us with troubling conditions that will take time to resolve.”

When asked if he was planning to keep Adams’ Department of Corrections Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie on, he told reporters he hadn’t made any additional personnel announcements at the time.

Mamdani’s executive order also directs his Law Department to work, in court, with Rikers’ federal monitor Steve Martin, and the parties in the landmark case Nuñez v. City of New York — in which a federal judge has ordered Rikers to be placed under ‘ federal receivership ’ after years of inmates alleging physical abuse — to form a plan to “end solitary confinement as soon as possible.”

“In order to stop conditions on Rikers from deteriorating any further, the Mayor is signing a new emergency executive order that instructs the Department of Correction and the Law Department to develop a plan within 45 days to come into compliance with the Board of Corrections’ Standards,” said Steve Banks, Mamdani’s nominee for the city’s next Corporation Counsel.

The City Council sued the Adams administration in December 2024 over its executive orders undermining Local Law 42, arguing that the mayor was incorrectly using his executive power to bypass the law. New York Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey Pearlman agreed, but U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York, who presides over the Nunez case, ruled days later that the city didn’t have to comply with the law banning solitary confinement.

Mamdani said ending the state of emergency on Rikers, ensuring Local Law 42 and the Board of Correction’s Minimum Standards are followed required the city to develop a plan with local and federal partners “to ensure that we can live up to the law that was passed here in this city, and finally, start to showcase our ability to deliver safety and justice.”

Adam Daly contributed to this report.