A federal judge overseeing the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City is weighing two distinct proposals on how to fix the city’s troubled and violent lockups.
For nearly a decade, the judge, Laura Taylor Swain, has been monitoring the city’s jails to keep them in compliance with a court order to overhaul Rikers. But conditions at the complex — which now houses about 6,600 people — have continued to deteriorate.
Since 2022, at least 35 people have died either while being held at city jails or shortly after being released from custody, according to city data.
In November, Judge Swain found the city in contempt for failing to stem violence and excessive force at Rikers. She said she was leaning toward stripping control of the city’s jails from Mayor Eric Adams and handing it to an outside authority, known as a receiver. That remedy, the judge said, would “make the management of the use of force and safety aspects of the Rikers Island jails ultimately answerable directly to the court.”
The appointment of a federal receiver is considered a last resort. Judge Swain has refrained from imposing one for years, even as lawyers for Rikers detainees called for a takeover.
Lawyers representing the inmates and the city each sent Judge Swain plans for how a receivership could work. The proposals, contained in a nearly 1,000-page document, are the culmination of a decade of motions, court hearings and rulings.
The proposals differ dramatically, and Judge Swain has not set a date for deciding whether to follow one of the plans — or one of her own.
Here are the issues in play in a potential takeover of New York City’s jail network.
Rikers at a Crossroads
The city has struggled to control jail violence for decades. The Department of Correction is also the target of lawsuits about the denial of medical care to detainees and the decrepit conditions of the buildings at Rikers Island, which is in the East River near LaGuardia Airport.
The City Council voted to close Rikers and replace it with smaller jails in four of the city’s five boroughs by 2027. But officials have said the city is unlikely to meet that deadline.
A federal monitor, appointed as a result of the case, has been giving Judge Swain regular updates over the past decade on conditions inside the complex. And nearly every one has sounded the alarm about safety conditions.
In a recent filing to the court, the monitor, Steve J. Martin, wrote that the problems facing the Correction Department were “so deeply entrenched that there is no singular solution that will fix these issues.”
The Plaintiffs’ Proposal
The Legal Aid Society and a private law firm that represents incarcerated people have argued that the court should install a receiver. They have been joined by the federal prosecutor’s office for the Southern District of New York.
They say that the receiver, who would answer only to the court, should have broad power to make changes, including some ability to address union contracts.
Rikers has struggled to overcome a staffing problem for decades, but the issue has not been caused by a shortage of officers. There is roughly one uniformed officer for each detainee housed at Rikers, according to city data, making it among the best-staffed jails in the country.
A New York Times investigation in 2021 found that guards were often stationed in inefficient ways that failed to protect inmates, and that the system’s unlimited-sick-day policy meant that posts went unguarded and detainees gained control of entire housing areas.
The percentage of officers out sick on any given day dropped to about six in November from a peak of 32 at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
The plaintiffs’ proposal would let the receiver not only renegotiate union contracts but hire, fire and deploy employees as needed within the bounds of local law. The receiver could also be able to “review, investigate and take disciplinary or other corrective or remedial actions with respect to violations of D.O.C. policies, procedures and protocols” related to the court order, they wrote.
The receiver, who would work alongside the monitor and the Correction Department’s commissioner, would be employed at the pleasure of the court. The receivership would last as long as needed for the city to comply with the terms of the settlement.
“The specific powers afforded to the receiver under our proposal are both justified by this court’s specific findings, and well within the scope of powers that other federal courts have granted to receivers in corrections cases,” the plaintiffs wrote.
The City’s Plan
City officials proposed a markedly different plan.
The current commissioner of the Correction Department, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, should serve in a twofold role, the city said:
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She should answer to the court on the use of force and safety measures.
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On everything else related to the administration of the jails, she would answer to the mayor.
The mayor would not be able to remove the commissioner, who would be serving in the new role of “compliance director.”
The city hopes to capitalize on the good will Ms. Magineley-Liddie has garnered since her appointment in 2023. Judge Swain said that the monitoring team had “observed an immediate change in the department’s approach and dynamic” after she took the helm.
The city also argued that its proposal would accomplish the consent decree’s objective while following the “principles of federalism, that the Court’s intrusions into state and local law and governance be kept to the absolute minimum necessary to remedy constitutional violations.”
To ensure that Ms. Maginley-Liddie would remain shielded from political influence — a point of concern voiced by Judge Swain — the commissioner would have her job guaranteed for five years.
In a key difference from the plaintiffs’ plan, the city’s proposal does not include giving the compliance director broad authority over union contracts, although the director could ask the court to alter them. Such a power cannot “be justified as necessary to correct constitutional violations,” the city said. “Contracts with one municipal union can have a far-reaching impact on the city’s relationships and contract negotiations with other municipal unions.”
Mr. Adams gained favor with the powerful correction officers’ unions early in his tenure: Before taking office, he stood flanked by union representatives and announced that he would reinstate solitary confinement, a policy the union had pushed. And as soon as he took office, he replaced the correction commissioner, as well as an internal investigator with whom the union had sparred.
The city argued that having the commissioner also serve as compliance director would make change happen more quickly. And because Ms. Maginley-Liddie is already a city employee, she would receive only her commissioner salary and benefits.
Ms. Maginley-Liddie is “acutely familiar with the legal and practical workings of city government, and accordingly, is best positioned to more immediately identify and correct any impediments,” the city wrote.
In New York, a group that includes former Department of Correction workers have filed a letter to Judge Swain warning that the city’s proposal would not result in meaningful changes. Any receiver must exist outside the city’s power structure, said the group, led by Elizabeth Glazer, who ran the mayor’s office of criminal justice under Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“The mayor would continue to be able to assert immense political pressure over the proposed commissioner / compliance director, ensuring that such individual lacked any meaningful independence,” they wrote.
Can a Receiver Fix Rikers?
Federal takeovers of jails are rare. There have been only nine in the nation since the late 70s, according to the federal monitor.
Governments fight to retain control, said Hernandez D. Stroud, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
“Receivership litigation strikes at the heart of democratic governance,” Mr. Stroud said.
The structure of receiverships, from who the appointee is to how much control that person has, has varied vastly. In some cases, the person comes from outside the system; other times a government official is chosen.
In two cases, the receiver had complete authority, essentially replacing the local government officials, according to the monitor. In the other instances, some local government control remained.
However, receiverships have not always led to fast or permanent changes.
California’s prisons have been under a receivership focused on medical care since 2006.
People in the Washington, D.C., jail system filed a class-action lawsuit in 2024 accusing it of unconstitutional treatment because of a failure to provide medical care, according to the monitor, 24 years after the receivership ended.
And Alabama’s prison system, whose groundbreaking receivership concluded in 1983, was found to have violated the constitutional rights of detainees in its men’s prisons in 2020 following a U.S. Justice Department investigation.
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