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A new watchdog report on Rikers Island details new medical and safety horrors besetting detainees at the sprawling jail complex — a headache that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani can’t avoid.
The Board of Correction analysis looks at five of the 11 inmate fatalities so far this year, and fingers correction officers for ignoring medical emergencies, falsifying records and permitting illicit drugs to circulate freely in the jails.
It’s been over six months since federal Judge Laura Swain cleared the way for an independent federal receiver to take control of the city’s troubled jails — but with no handover yet in sight, Mamdani’s team may have to finish the transition.
Notice: We called for a federal takeover long before Mamdani was even a candidate for mayor; we’re now only more eager for it to happen.
Nine years of a federal monitor (a team of highly paid “experts”) kibbitzing as the city kept running the jails only saw Rikers grow more violent; giving an independent manager total control for at least three years is the best hope for real improvement.
Full control — independent of City Hall — leaves no room for interference by politicians or the correction union.
By the way, Swain should look at ordering a stay of the planned January 2027 closing date for Rikers: Shuttering the central jail with no replacement facilities would surely flood the few remaining jails, turning them into worse horrors.
That’s even if Mamdani tries to simply free most of the 7,000 hard cases now at Rikers, in accordance with his “decarceral” philosophy.
Frankly, the feds should probably decree that the city end its “Close Rikers” farce entirely and get going on building new jails on the island.
It’s the only rational thing to do for the safety of those held at Rikers — and of the greater citizenry of New York.