A federal judge on Monday stripped control of the Rikers Island jail complex from New York City and ordered the appointment of an independent manager to fix rampant violence and persistent constitutional violations at the infamous lockup.
Citing nearly a decade of cyclical reform and backsliding at Rikers, Chief U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Laura Taylor Swain rejected a proposal from New York City to appoint the current correction commissioner, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, as a "compliance director," and instead will put control in the hands of an independent official "empowered to take all actions necessary" to end the chaos at the jail.
The ruling is no surprise. Swain warned city officials last year that she was inclined to impose a receivership after finding that the city was in contempt of 18 provisions of an agreement it entered in 2015 to settle a lawsuit over brutality at Rikers. In fact, violence, death, use-of-force, self-harm, and most other metrics of human misery got demonstrably worse at Rikers in the ensuing decade, despite repeated orders from Swain and recommendations from a court-appointed monitoring team to improve conditions.
