Chaos at Rikers Could Lead to Federal Court Control, U.S. Attorney Says

The U.S. attorney in Manhattan raised the prospect on Tuesday of placing Rikers Island under a federal court’s control, an extraordinary step that would amount to a no-confidence vote in New York City’s ability to reverse the crisis that has gripped the jail complex over the past 18 months.

In a letter filed in federal court, the U.S. attorney, Damian Williams, wrote that the city had failed to say how it would remedy the chaos and added that if it did not make “dramatic systemic reforms” and bring in outside experts, his office would be “left with no other option but to seek more aggressive relief.”

That could include seeking the appointment of an outside official to run the jail, the letter said.

The letter was filed with a federal judge, Laura Taylor Swain, who has presided over the long-running case that led to the appointment of a monitor who oversees reforms at the complex. The city’s jail system now has about 7,700 uniformed staff with a majority on Rikers Island, a complex with eight separate jails that hold about 5,500 people.

A receiver — whom the court would appoint to run the complex directly — could face fewer obstacles in improving conditions at Rikers. The daily absenteeism of more than a third of the correction officers has led to inhumane conditions for detainees and staff alike. Sixteen people held in city jails died last year, the most since 2013, and three more have already died this year.

The gaps in staffing have meant that those incarcerated — most of whom have yet to be tried — have often gone without food, water and much-needed medical care. A report filed in March by the monitor, Steve J. Martin, found that violence had “become normalized.”

The New York Times recently reported on a “fight night” in which detainees were forced to participate and on two brutal beatings by inmates that went undocumented by jailers.

In his letter, Mr. Williams said his office was alarmed by “the extraordinary level of violence and disorder at the jails and the ongoing imminent risk of harm that inmates and correction officers face every day.”

He added that the city’s jails commissioner, Louis A. Molina, did not attend two recent meetings with prosecutors, and that his office had yet to receive details from the Department of Correction about how it planned to implement reforms called for by Mr. Martin. Neither the mayor’s office nor the Department of Correction immediately responded to a request for comment.

Mr. Williams did not commit to seeking a receivership. Judge Swain would have to order one after finding, among other things, that less extreme remedies had been exhausted and that detainees were under serious threat.

Carlina Rivera, a city councilwoman who chairs the committee on criminal justice, said that the city had two options: Act quickly, or join in efforts to bring in an independent reformer.

“This is a system in grave crisis, where no one is safe,” she said, saying that a receivership should be “seriously considered.”

The city plans to close the long-troubled complex by 2027, replacing it with four smaller lockups, but that could be hampered by Mayor Eric Adams’s crackdown on crime, which might send more people to Rikers.

Judge Swain has indicated her own alarm, responding to the monitor’s most recent report by saying it was “of grave concern” and scheduling a hearing for April 26.

Receiverships have been put into place several times over the past 50 years, including in Washington, D.C., Alabama and Michigan. Experts said that such an arrangement might help bypass organizational and personnel issues that have thwarted city commissioners — including Mr. Molina’s predecessor, Vincent N. Schiraldi. A receiver would not be wholly bound by local laws, like those that dictate who can be hired to certain positions.

“It permits them to cut through some of the dysfunction that the city has not been able to address,” said Elizabeth Glazer, the former leader of the mayor’s office of criminal justice who last week called for a federal receivership in an opinion piece in The New York Daily News.

The current crisis began mounting in fall 2020, after the coronavirus swept the island, sickening more than 1,000 correction officers and killing at least six, as well as five other employees and two health workers.

Officers stopped showing up by the hundreds. That left much of the complex in the hands of detainees, and by the summer and fall of 2021, violence and disorder were rampant. In one striking example, The Times obtained video of the “fight night” inside one of the jails in October, held as a correction officer stood by, declining to intervene.

A recent Times investigation had also found that the system deploys many of the officers who do come to work in jobs where they have little contact with detainees. New York City operates the country’s best-staffed jail system, but hundreds of officers worked as secretaries and laundry room supervisors, while dozens of housing areas remained unguarded.

The unions that represent correction officers bristled at Mr. Schiraldi’s leadership as he tried to coax them back to work, and the month before Mr. Adams was sworn in, he appointed Mr. Molina. The new commissioner has been more friendly to the unions, rolling back restrictions his predecessor had placed on sick leave and firing an internal investigator, Sarena Townsend, who was at odds with union leadership.

In an interview, Mr. Schiraldi said that serious consideration should be given to receivership, arguing that the crisis had been building for decades.

“A watershed-change approach is needed,” Mr. Schiraldi said. “I hope the city embraces it.”

A spokesman for the largest union representing Rikers correction officers, the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Williams’s letter.

Mr. Martin, the monitor, has also recorded his frustration with the city’s failure to provide basic information. His team’s March report remarked on a “deeply troubling” lack of open and transparent communication with the Correction Department.

Since that report, Mr. Williams said, his office has “repeatedly asked the department and the city to provide us with a description of the specific steps they intend to take, or have already taken, to address each of the monitor recommendations. To date, we have not been provided with this level of detail.”

He asked Judge Swain to direct the department and the city to provide that information before next week’s conference.

Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting.