Judge orders ‘remediation manager’ to oversee Rikers Island jails

New York City’s jails will get an outside manager to protect the constitutional rights of people in custody, a federal judge announced Tuesday.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain said in a new ruling that she will appoint an independent “remediation manager” to improve conditions on Rikers Island, which has long been plagued by violence and other abuses. She said the manager will be a “skilled outside professional” who will work collaboratively with the city’s Department of Correction but report directly to the court.

“While the necessary changes will take some time, the Court expects to see continual progress toward these goals so that control of use of force and related policies and practices can be returned to the City and the DOC as quickly as possible,” Swain wrote in her ruling.

The correction department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nonprofit Legal Aid Society and a private law firm representing the plaintiffs in the case said Swain’s decision confirms that city leadership is unable to make transformative change at the jails on its own.

“We commend the court for taking this bold and necessary step,” Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, and Debra Greenberger, partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, said in a statement. “The people we serve deserve real accountability, and today’s decision brings us one step closer to justice.”

In a statement, Jay Clayton, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York nominated by President Donald Trump, praised the judge’s ruling.

“Rikers is not working, for its over 7,000 people in custody, the correction officers and staff who work there, or the people of New York. The Constitutional rights of people in custody are not being protected,” he said.

Five people have died so far this year while in custody or just after their release. The city is also responding to more than 700 lawsuits accusing jail staff of sexually abusing women detained on Rikers over the last half century. A local law requires Rikers Island to close by 2027 and be replaced by smaller jails in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. But the city is behind schedule and council members have urged Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to do more.

At a press conference Tuesday, Adams defended his record overseeing the jails and said problems on Rikers Island were “decades in the making.”

“The federal judge made a determination that they want to do something else, and they don't like what we're doing,” he said. “It's a federal judge. We're going to follow the rules.”

The task ahead for the court’s appointee

Taylor Swain’s decision stems from a class-action lawsuit filed more than a decade ago on behalf of people who said they had been subjected to excessive force while in city custody. A 2015 landmark consent decree in that case required the city to take various steps to reduce violence by staff and create a safer environment for incarcerated people.

But for years, advocates and defense attorneys have criticized the city’s efforts and called for someone outside the Department of Correction to step in. Last fall, Taylor Swain held the city in contempt after finding that officials had failed to protect both detainees and staff on Rikers and signaled that she was likely to task someone else with the job.

She said the rate of violence in city jails had gotten “demonstrably worse” since 2015 and that officials hadn’t sufficiently followed through on 18 requirements from past court orders.

Lawyers for the city have said Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, who Adams appointed in December 2023, could transform the jails herself, by acting as both the leader of the jail system and a “compliance director” for the court case. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, have asked the judge to appoint an independent receiver with far-ranging powers to overhaul the status quo.

In her latest ruling, Taylor Swain praised Maginley-Liddie’s leadership but said she wanted to bring in outside help because “even a strong commissioner with sound intentions can only make limited progress” — especially after years of what she described as “glacial” delays, leadership deficits and wasted taxpayer resources. The judge said Maginley-Liddie will keep her role as commissioner, while the new remediation manager will have the “ultimate authority” to get the jails in compliance with the 18 court-ordered steps the city failed to take.

Taylor Swain’s decision outlines how the remediation manager will work with both the court and city leadership to make the jails safer. She said the appointee will have “broad powers,” though “no broader than necessary” to correct the city’s failures to follow court orders. According to the ruling, the remediation manager will be allowed to:

• Change Department of Correction policies and practices
• Create, change or get rid of employee and contractor positions
• Recruit, hire, train, fire, promote, demote, transfer and evaluate employees and contractors
• Assign and deploy staff to different posts
• Renegotiate contracts with labor unions
• Procure supplies and equipment
• Investigate and discipline staff who violate policies relevant to the court order
• Hire consultants or bring in other technical assistance

Taylor Swain’s ruling said the remediation manager will also be allowed to delegate any of those powers to the commissioner, who will still be expected to oversee all functions of the jails outside the scope of the court order.

Taylor Swain said she will hire the remediation manager based on recommendations from the city and attorneys for the plaintiffs.

A job description attached to the decision seeks applicants with significant management and correctional experience outside the Department of Correction, collaborative skills, the ability to build trust with management and rank-and-file staff, and “excellent” communication skills.

The ruling also requires both parties and the independent Rikers monitor to present up to four candidates by the end of August.

This story has been updated with new information.