On Tuesday, the Department of Justice threatened to take control of New York City’s Rikers Island prison and others away from Mayor Eric Adams amid reports of “extraordinary levels of violence and disorder.”
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain Tuesday, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams reiterated the “systemic failures” within the New York City Department of Correction pointed out in a March report.
“We remain alarmed by the extraordinary level of violence and disorder at the jails,” the letter, also signed by assistant district attorneys Jeffrey Powell and Lara Eshkenazi, said.
Fox News reports:
They continued: “The continuing failure to follow basic security protocols, dysfunctional staff deployment practices, inexplicably high staff absenteeism levels, deficient management and supervision of frontline officers, and the failure to hold staff timely accountable for the use of excessive and unnecessary force against inmates have resulted in an unsafe environment and non-compliance with the core provisions of the Consent Judgement and the three Remedial Orders entered by this Court.”
The scathing 78-page report filed March 16 detailed worsening violence and safety issues at Rikers Island, inmates that miss thousands of medical appointments each month and 30% of uniformed staff calling out sick or otherwise unavailable for duties, most of whom are believed to be gaming the system.
Tuesday’s letter asked the court to order a representative from Adams’ office and New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina a status conference scheduled for April 26 so that they “are available to directly respond to any questions” on the progress of adopting the report’s recommendations.
“The jails are in a state of crisis, inmates and staff are being seriously injured, and action is desperately needed now,” Williams wrote Tuesday. Citing more than six years of noncompliance, the letter asserted that without a commitment to “expeditiously make dramatic reforms” and bring in corrections experts from outside the department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office “will be left with no other option but to seek more aggressive relief, which could include the appointment of a receiver with independent authority to implement sweeping reforms and take necessary action” to comply with past court orders and recommendations.
The letter asks the court to order a representative from the mayor’s office and New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina a status conference scheduled for April 26 so that they “are available to directly respond to any questions” on the progress.
