NYC Ordered to Hand Control of Rikers Jail to Outside Manager
Rikers Island, as seen from a departing flight from Laguardia Airport, in 2022.
Photographer: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis News/Getty ImagesA federal judge ordered New York City to hand control of its troubled Rikers Island jail to an outside manager, capping a decade-long court-ordered monitorship that consistently found rampant violence and other ills in the city’s lockups.
US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said in a ruling Tuesday that she would appoint a “remediation manager” to address the deeply entrenched problems at the sprawling jail complex. Rikers has been under the federal monitoring program since 2015, after the settlement of a class action lawsuit against the city.