A federal judge overseeing New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex on Wednesday found the city in contempt for failing to stem violence and excessive force at the facility, and said she was learning toward taking control of the city’s jails.
The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, said in a 65-page opinion that the city and its Department of Correction had violated the constitutional rights of prisoners and staff members alike by exposing them to danger, and had intentionally ignored her orders.
The judge wrote that she was “inclined” to impose an outside authority, known as a receiver, which she said would be 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 ordered the city and lawyers representing prisoners to devise a plan for a receivership by Jan. 14.
Judge Swain’s ruling came nearly a decade after the city’s jails, which include the Rikers Island complex, fell under federal oversight in a settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by prisoners and the Legal Aid Society. Since then, a court-appointed monitor has issued regular reports on the violence that has continued to plague the facilities. In the past two years, at least 33 people have died in the jails or shortly after being released.
The federal monitor, Steve J. Martin, filed a report last year saying that violence was unabated in the jails and that officials were hiding information about it. Mr. Martin’s team recommended that the judge consider holding the Department of Correction in contempt.
On Wednesday, Judge Swain found the city in contempt of 18 provisions reached in the settlement. She wrote that the nine years since the deal was reached had shown that depending on jail officials who answer to politicians would merely mean more confrontation and delay.
“The current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period,” Judge Swain wrote, noting “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 lawyers who filed the suit against the city — from the Legal Aid Society and the firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel — called Wednesday’s ruling “a historic decision,” in a joint statement.
“The culture of brutality on Rikers Island has resisted judicial and political reform efforts for years,” they said.
Last November, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, formally joined calls for the appointment of an outside authority to take control of Rikers Island. Nicholas Biase, his spokesman, declined to comment on Judge Swain’s ruling.
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