Tasked with overseeing conditions on Rikers Island, Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled last Wednesday that New York City officials have failed to address violence and use of force in the jail, potentially leading to a federal takeover—with Swain stating she is inclined to impose receivership, which would mean an outside party takes control of safety and protocols at Rikers. Swain granted a request to hold the city in civil contempt, meaning that it had not complied with past court orders, and ordered the parties to develop an improvement plan within the next few weeks.
“Those who live and work in the jails on Rikers Island are faced with grave and immediate threats of danger, as well as actual harm, on a daily basis as a direct result of defendants’ lack of diligence,” Swain wrote, referring to the City of New York and its Department of Correction. She added, “The remedial efforts thus far undertaken by the Court, the Monitoring Team, and the parties have not been effective in alleviating this danger.”
Violations and Violence
The Legal Aid Society and others filed a class action lawsuit, arguing that Rikers detainees’ civil rights were being violated due to being subjected to physical violence. This lawsuit led to a 2015 consent decree that required a federal monitor to regularly review conditions in city jails and share their findings with the court.
In the nine years since, Swain stated that rates of violence on Rikers Island have gotten “demonstrably worse,” citing incidents of the use of force by staff climbing. According to the ruling, staff used physical force against incarcerated people 4,652 times in 2016 and 6,784 times last year. The peak was in 2021, with 8,184 use-of-force incidents. The yearly number of stabbings and slashing also increased.
While city officials and the correction officers’ union attributed the rise in violence to the growing share of detainees accused of violent crimes since 2019, Swain stated that the violence trend reflects mismanagement and, at times, “bad faith” on the part of city officials.
Swain found that NYC failed to follow 18 provisions mandated in court orders designed to improve jail conditions, including failure to implement a new use-of-force policy to reduce the number of times excessive force is used by officers, failure to adequately investigate the use of force and hold staff accountable for misconduct, failure to adequately supervise staff, failure to effectively deploy officers across the jails, and failing to protect young people in custody.
Swain said she had “no reason to doubt Commissioner Maginley-Liddie’s abilities, recent accomplishments, and good intentions” but that she “simply cannot ignore the history of noncompliance and ineffective measures and restart the clock each time a commissioner is replaced.”
City Officials Respond
Having resisted calls for an outside receiver, Swain’s ruling dealt a major blow to Mayor Eric Adams. Defending corrections Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, a mayoral spokesperson, described Maginley-Liddie as a “necessary steady hand” to oversee the jails’ safety.
“Our administration—with Commissioner Maginley-Liddie at the helm of the Department of Correction—has made significant progress toward addressing the decadeslong neglect and issues on Rikers Island,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “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.”
Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio said in a statement that “outsourcing control of Rikers Island to a federal receiver will not be a silver bullet and will not solve any of these problems,” he said. “Giving correction officers the manpower and resources to enforce law and order in our jails will.”
Swain’s ruling comes as pressure from outside investigations into the conditions on Rikers mount. In addition to an increase in reported rates of physical violence, NYC also faces more than 700 lawsuits accusing correction officers and medical staff of sexually abusing women while they were detained on Rikers Island.
“There’s no question that the culture in the jails has to change,” said Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the public defender group’s Prisoners’ Rights Project. “It’s harmful to everyone who walks through those doors—the people who work there and the people who live there.”
