New York NY – “Appointing an independent remediation manager is a serious indictment of the decades of mismanagement at Rikers. Today, Judge Laura Swain made the necessary decision to appoint a manager with their own substantial discretion to turn around the deplorable conditions for those detained and those who work at Rikers.
“Rikers has become synonymous with human rights abuse. Over a hundred people detained have died awaiting trial in the last decade—at points in its history, being sent to Rikers was roulette of a death sentence without regard for basic constitutional rights to a trial.
“Appointing a federal receiver or remediation manager will not magically fix all of the jail complex’s problems, and I still believe closing Rikers and replacing it with the borough-based jails is the right step. But the current system is too mired in its own mayhem to be fixed by any one Mayor or administration, so a receiver outside of Rikers’ intractable legal and regulatory barriers has the best chance to achieve basic safety and security for incarcerated people and staff.”
