A day after Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor called for New York City jails to be taken over by an outside authority, the judge who will make the decision expressed strong disapproval of the city’s management of Rikers. Island and other lockups.
Federal judge Laura Taylor Swain wrote Tuesday that the administration of Mayor Eric Adams failed to “address the dangerous conditions that regularly plague prisons and endanger those who are detained and work there.”
“These concerns raise questions about whether the defendants can safely and properly manage the jails,” Judge Swain said in a court filing, referring to the city and its Department of Corrections.
Rikers Island, which holds most of the city’s jails, has fallen into disarray over the past three years, with violence and self-harm among inmates rising after the pandemic. Lawyers for those detained there have repeatedly requested that Judge Swain strip the city of control of the jail complex. On Monday, in a significant move, they were joined by Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, who said “we can’t wait any longer” for the city to resolve its years-long crisis.
Because the power of an outside authority — called a receiver — comes from a federal court, it can override state and local laws. That could mean avoiding contracts that keep prisons dependent on the city’s largest corrections officers union, releasing some inmates to ease overcrowding or cutting red tape to buy things like basic lock the doors.
Judge Swain’s comments do not mean he will appoint an outside authority, and any decision is likely to be months away. But his statement underscores the growing possibility that the city will lose at least some control over the jails. Any loss would be a stain on the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, who on Tuesday staunchly defended his record.
Speaking at a news conference, the mayor appeared frustrated and opposed the idea that the takeover was necessary, though he said his administration would abide by the law.
“You won’t find someone more committed to turning his back on the Department of Corrections than I have shown as mayor of New York,” he insisted.
Mr. Adams, while expressing his respect for Mr. Williams, said his administration has improved the prisons. He cited an April report from a federal monitor that oversees conditions at Rikers, which said the city is making changes that have “real potential to move the department toward reducing the imminent that the risk of harm faced by persons in custody and staff.”
The mayor, however, did not quote the next paragraph from the monitor, Steve J. Martin, who said that his cautious optimism was tempered by the “continually high” rate of violence, carried out by the staff of prisoners and among the prisoners themselves.
“There is real progress, but there is also continued cause for alarm,” Mr. Martin concluded.
The condition of the prisons has deteriorated. Six people have died this year, three of them this month, either while in city custody or directly after being released. And in a series of reports beginning in May, Mr. Martin criticized Mr. Adams and his corrections commissioner, Louis A. Molina, for covering up episodes of violence and neglect. These include a confrontation between corrections officers and an inmate that left the inmate paralyzed and another incident where staff left an inmate who had been severely beaten by other inmates naked in a prison facility for hours. .
Mr. Adams was asked about the lack of transparency by a reporter at a news conference Tuesday.
“Let’s fix that,” said Mr. Adams, before exclaiming, “But you’re not going into receivership!”
He emphasized – contrary to the monitor and lawyers for the detainees – that the city is “trending in the right direction.”
“Let’s sit down and talk,” said the mayor. “Let’s work together toward a goal of how we can fix the system.”
The city’s prisons have been troubled for decades, but the latest crisis began in March 2020, when the pandemic reached New York. Many corrections officers fell ill with the Covid-19 fallout, and soon they stopped showing up for work in large numbers. As a result, violence and chaos reign in prisons, with more than 40 people killed since the beginning of 2021.
Rikers is required by city law to close by 2027 and if an outside authority is appointed, he could run the jail complex for the rest of the year. In the history of the United States, federal and state judges have approved the transfer of power from local jail or prison authorities about a dozen times, with the first in Alabama in 1979, according to Hernandez D. Stroud, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Mr. Stroud said a receiver could reconfigure the way New York City jails operate.
“Instead of going back to the old, failed processes and practices that created the dysfunction that existed for decades at Rikers, this could allow the city to turn a new page,” he said.
The filing Tuesday by Judge Swain, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, did not mention Mr. Williams’ statement calling for Rikers to be placed under receivership. But in the coming weeks and months, the judge is likely to ask the parties to evaluate whether a receiver is needed and, if so, who should be given the job and how broad their authority should be.
Elizabeth Glazer, the former director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice under Bill de Blasio and a former prosecutor in the Southern District, has championed the idea of a receiver and urged city officials to embrace it.
He said the challenge is to convince the Adams administration that it is in the best interest of the inmates, the staff and the city itself “not to fight it but to shape it and use it to make the reforms that on the other hand it is difficult to do and has not been done for 30 years or more.”
In fact, the problems at Rikers and other city jail facilities are not easily reversible, and there is no guarantee that a receiver will succeed where a generation of corrections commissioners have failed, Mr. Stroud.
“I try to warn people that a receiver can be effective in certain ways,” he added. “But it’s not a panacea.”
Maria Cramer contributed to the report.
