What will it take to bring a federal takeover of New York City’s jails?
Last week, Southern District Judge Laura Swain held city Department of Correction officials in contempt of court over their failure to alert the federal monitor team placing detainees accused of arson in a new Arson Reduction Housing Unit, where the cells lack sprinklers.
So much for the hopes that new DOC chief Lynelle Maginley-Liddie would bring a new era of cooperation with the monitor.
This, when federal monitor Steve Martin in July slammed the “pervasive dysfunction” and “disturbing level of regression” wracking the Rikers Island jails, the latest in a long series of reports flagging continued woes.
What has the monitor team achieved in exchange for reaping nearly $10 million in taxpayer funds under the 2015 agreement settling the federal suit over Rikers’ woes?
Meanwhile, the island has devolved into a danger zone where inmate deaths from fentanyl overdoses and suicide occur with regularity; demoralized guards are overworked, beaten and maimed; and gangs control some jail units — even filming a drill-rap video inside the jail in March.
Mayor Adams isn’t to blame for the years of Rikers regression under the last mayor, nor for the deluded and impossible “close Rikers” plan that distracts from the urgent need to fix Rikers.
But Adams’ team has proved unable to turn the jails around as rapidly as is needed.
It’s time to end the costly farce of federal monitoring, and move to a federal receivership that can actually bring the needed radical change.
