Judge holds NYC in contempt over worsening conditions on Rikers, says federal takeover likely

A federal judge held New York City’s government in contempt of court Wednesday for failing to improve conditions on Rikers Island — and her scathing ruling says she’s now “inclined” to place the city’s entire correctional system under federal control.

In her bombshell decision, Manhattan Federal Court Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain found that the city Department of Correction has failed to make meaningful progress on 18 sweeping reforms required under the 2015 Nunez consent decree that aim to improve safety for staff and inmates in the city’s jails, most of which are on Rikers.

As a result of that failure, Swain ruled that Mayor Adams’ administration is in contempt of the consent decree on all 18 points, including key provisions requiring the DOC to drive down the rate of deaths in custody and violence behind bars.

“The use of force rate and other rates of violence, self-harm, and deaths in custody are demonstrably worse than when the Consent Judgment went into effect in 2015,” she wrote.

“As the record in this case demonstrates, the current rates of use of force, stabbings and slashings, fights, assaults on staff, and in-custody deaths remain extraordinarily high, and there has been no substantial reduction in the risk of harm currently facing those who live and work in the Rikers Island jails.”

For that reason, the judge wrote that she’s all but certain to strip control of the jail system from the Department of Correction and instead let the federal government take over day-to-day operations under a “receivership” structure.

“The Court is inclined to impose a receivership: namely, a remedy that will make the management of the use of force and safety aspects of the Rikers Island jails ultimately answerable directly to the Court,” she wrote in her 65-page ruling.

Swain ordered lawyers for the Adams administration and the Legal Aid Society, which filed the lawsuit that resulted in the 2015 decree, to draw up a plan for a receivership by Jan. 14. She will then consider those submissions before making a final decision on “next steps,” she wrote.

A spokeswoman for the mayor — who has been opposed to the notion of a federal receivership — didn’t comment directly on Swain’s ruling, but said his administration is making “significant progress towards addressing the decades-long neglect and issues on Rikers Island.”

“We are proud of our work, but recognize there is more to be done and look forward to working with the federal monitoring team on our shared goal of continuing to improve the safety of everyone in our jails,” said the spokeswoman, Amaris Cockfield.

The Legal Aid Society called Swain’s decision “historic.”

“We laud this ruling, which will finally create a pathway for reform that can protect those who have been failed by DOC’s leadership by making leadership accountable to the court and not political authorities,” the group said in a joint statement with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, a law firm that helped file the underlying lawsuit.

“The court’s recognition that the current structure has failed, and that receivership free from political and other external influences is the path forward, can ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of incarceration status, are treated with the respect and dignity guaranteed to them under the law.”

Swain has several times before hinted she believes a receivership is in order, including soliciting proposals from the Adams administration on what it envisioned a federal takeover would look like.

However, the judge has never before stated outright that she is likely to place the system under such a structure.

Supporters of receivership, including dozens of local elected Democrats and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, have said eliminating the hierarchy of correction officials answering to the mayor would make sweeping changes possible on quicker timeframes — a sentiment Swain shared in her ruling.

“The last nine years … leave 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 wrote, adding that city officials have “fallen short of the requisite compliance with court orders for years, at times under circumstances that suggest bad faith.”

The union representing city correction officers blasted the decision and said the key to solving problems on Rikers is improving the level of staffing and resources.

“Today’s ruling by Judge Swain was largely based on the false and erroneous narrative promulgated by the Federal Monitor, who continues to misrepresent the root cause of increased violence in our jails,” a statement issued by the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association said. “We have been defunded, short staffed, scapegoated and handcuffed by the New York City Council and Federal Monitor, which have ignored every proposal we’ve made to keep our jails safe for everyone.”

The union noted that “70% of our inmate population is facing violent felony charges and that same population is driving the hundreds of assaults on our officers, including sexual assaults, as well as inmate on inmate attacks, which requires necessary, not excessive force, to keep everyone in our jails safe.”

Since Adams took office in January 2022, at least 33 New York City inmates have died while in custody or immediately upon their release. Of them, 19 died in 2022 alone, making it the deadliest year in the city’s jail system in decades.

A significant number of in-custody deaths in recent years have been suicides. That distressing detail was highlighted in an exclusive report by the Daily News that revealed the DOC has engaged in a practice known internally as “deadlocking,” whereby severely mentally ill inmates have been kept in their cells for weeks.

The mayor maintains there has been progress on Rikers under his administration, pointing to an increase in seizures of weapons in city jails and a drop of in-custody deaths in 2023 as compared to 2022.

But the Adams team has also been dogged by problems. Former Correction Commissioner Louis Molina was accused last year of ordering his team to withhold critical information about jail conditions from the federal monitor tasked with inspecting the city’s progress on the 2015 decree provisions.

Molina was shifted over to a City Hall position late last year and then became commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. He was replaced as correction commissioner by Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, who promised upon her appointment to work closely with the federal monitor.

The looming threat of a receivership comes as the city must by law shut down Rikers for good by 2027 and replace it with four borough-based jails. Adams has voiced concerns about that plan, saying the current population on Rikers is too large to be accommodated in the new jails and that there should be a large emphasis on mental health resources at the new lockups under construction.

Yonah Zeitz, advocacy director at the Katal Center for Equity, Health and Justice, argued Adams has himself to blame for the swelling Rikers population.

“The city under Mayor Adams is not following the law, not reducing violence, not advancing the jail closure plan but instead sending more people to be caged,” Zeitz said. “Until Rikers is shut down, receivership is needed to improve conditions and save lives.”

With Graham Rayman

Originally Published: November 27, 2024 at 11:16 AM EST