Judge seizes control of New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex

(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Tuesday seized control of New York City’s notorious jail complex on Rikers Island, which will now be run by an official who reports directly to the court.

In a 77-page ruling, Judge Laura Taylor Swain wrote that she found the conduct of city over the last nine years “leaves no doubt that continued insistence on compliance with the court’s orders by persons answerable principally to political authorities would lead only to confrontation and delay.”

She also wrote “that the current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period; that defendants have consistently fallen short of the requisite compliance with court orders for years, at times under circumstances that suggest bad faith; and that enormous resources — that the city devotes to a system that is at the same time overstaffed and underserved — are not being deployed effectively.”

The manager, who will report to the judge, will work with the city’s jails commissioner and will be “empowered to take all actions necessary” to fix the complex.

“While the necessary changes will take some time, the court expects to see continual progress toward these goals,” the judge wrote.

New York Mayor Eric Adams addressed the ruling during a news conference at city hall on Tuesday, saying that Rikers’ problems were “decades in the making.” He claimed that the legal requirement that the jail close in 2027 limited his administration’s ability to address them.

“It stated you can’t make any capital improvements on Rikers Island,” Adams said. “We can’t spend money on Rikers Island to improve the conditions.”

Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer, who previously served as the city’s comptroller, praised the judge’s ruling as “long-overdue but necessary” in a statement released on Tuesday.

“For decades, Rikers has represented a systemic failure of multiple mayoral administrations — plagued by violence, neglect, and dangerous and inhumane conditions,” he said. “While I applaud this decision, I do not view it as a victory; instead, it is a scathing indictment of our city’s failed leadership.”