Receivership May Be ‘Only Tool Left’ to Fix New York City’s Jails

 To try and fix longstanding problems in the city’s jails, a federal judge is likely to employ a rarely used remedy – the appointment of a third-party administrator known as a federal receiver, The New York Times reports. It’s a last resort that courts have used only when other remedies have been exhausted. The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, has expressed frustration with the city’s lack of progress, and she has already asked for comment on the potential receivership from the city and from lawyers representing detainees who sued over conditions in the jails. “For her to make these sorts of pronouncements, and then say, ‘I don’t know what else to do — the monitor’s reports are still bad,’” said Hernandez D. Stroud, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, paraphrasing the judge. “There’s only one tool left on the table.” Previous receivers have been former corrections officials, law professors or people with experience turning around large organizations.

Federal corrections law requires judges to give a receiver only the power that is necessary to address constitutional violations. But given the stubbornness of the issues at Rikers and their reach all the way up to leadership, Stroud predicted the receiver would be granted expansive control. Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of Vital City, a magazine focused on public safety, said there were two important qualifications for the Rikers role. The person needs to be “supremely able” to fix a complex organization and to negotiate with parties who are at odds. “They’re going to have to negotiate with the work force, the unions, and all the people who have interest,” said Glazer, who led the mayor’s office of criminal justice under Bill de Blasio. “They can’t simply impose the remedy, because it won’t stick.” It’s also possible that the Rikers case finds its way to the Supreme Court if the city or the Justice Department appeals. The court’s conservative wing, now in the majority, has expressed skepticism over the role of judges in managing prisons and jails.