A federal judge has ordered an independent manager to oversee jails in New York City, including those on Rikers Island, taking it out of the city’s hands.
The order followed multiple findings of contempt by the court against New York City officials, including the New York Department of Correction, and after years of delays on improvements to the city’s prisons.
The independent remediation manager was mandated by Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday.
Judge Swain expressed frustration with the city’s political leadership, saying continued efforts to achieve compliance “would lead only to confrontation and delay.”
“The current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period,” she said, according to court records.
The manager will have the power to change NYDOC policies, protocols and procedures, investigate and take disciplinary action in regards to use of force violations. The manager will also hire and deploy staff to cover areas where inmates are housed and negotiate contracts and procure equipment.
The remediation manager will oversee NYDOC officials and staff, including Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie and future successors, to carry out the court-mandated changes.
About 7,000 people are held in New York City jails.
Lawyers representing detainees applauded the new policy.
“We commend the court’s historic decision to appoint an independent receiver to end the culture of brutality in the city’s jails. 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,” the Legal Aid Society and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP said in a release.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the problems on Rikers were “decades in the making.”
“If a federal judge made a determination that we did something they didn’t like, then we are going to follow the rules,” the mayor said at a press conference.
He noted that during his time with the advocacy group 100 Blacks In Law Enforcement Who Care, he stood with correction officers at Rikers to highlight poor conditions there. Mr. Adams, who helped found the group in 1995, stepped down as its spokesperson in 2013.
Officials with the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, which represents the prison guards and others working at New York City jails, have signalled their willingness to work with the new manager but also asserted that their members have employment rights and jobs protected by city law.
The association said the workers have faced a multitude of challenges running city jails.
“No other workforce in this city has had to endure the unprecedented challenges that we have faced in the last five years, from significant staffing shortages, resulting in a reduction of nearly 40% of our workforce to increased assaults, including sexual assaults against our members. The city’s jails cannot operate without us,” COBA President Benny Boscio said in a statement.
