STATEMENT FROM CAMPAIGN TO CLOSE RIKERS ON THE APPOINTMENT OF FEDERAL RECEIVER FOR RIKERS ISLAND

Yesterday, Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain made the decision to appoint an outside federal receiver for the city’s jail system including Rikers Island. This decision comes after 38 deaths in DOC custody under watch of Mayor Eric Adams and continued dysfunction at Rikers despite almost ten years of reports from the federally appointed monitor.

In response, the Campaign to Close Rikers issued the following statement:

“The federal monitor has repeatedly said that the imminent risk of harm to everyone detained at Rikers makes it necessary and urgent to use every possible tool to reduce the population. Mayor Adams, however, has chosen instead to use his power to vastly increase the number of people subject to the horrors of Rikers, while further eroding accountability within the Department of Correction, as the federal monitor has documented. As Judge Swain starts the process to select a receiver to manage Rikers, it remains true that rapid decarceration is what’s needed most immediately to address the deadly conditions at Rikers, along with a renewed commitment to follow the law and close Rikers for good.”

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