In a stunning move, a federal judge has seized control of the Rikers Island jail complex from New York City.

“Judge Laura Taylor Swain, in a 77-page ruling, ordered the notorious jail – and the city’s entire jail system — be run by an independent officer reporting solely to the court, having found that conditions at the jail remained unconstitutionally dangerous, with persistent failures by NYC Department of Correction (DOC) leadership to implement court-mandated reforms,” Fox News reported Wednesday.

One of the nation’s largest jails, Rikers Island, where disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was held, houses around 7,000 inmates and has long come under criticism for conditions deemed unsafe.

“The unsafe and dangerous conditions in the jails… have become normalized despite the fact that they are clearly abnormal and unacceptable,” Swain wrote in the ruling, noting how nothing has been done in the years after the judgment in the 2011 case, Nunez v. City of New York.

“Nine years have passed since the parties first agreed that the perilous conditions in the Rikers Island jails were unconstitutional; that the level of unconstitutional danger has not improved… is both alarming and unacceptable,” the judge noted, referring to the federal lawsuit brought by inmates that resulted in a 2015 settlement in which New York City agreed to reforms and oversight of the complex.

An independent official has been ordered to oversee the jail and report directly to the court, and will be “empowered to take all actions necessary” in improving the facility in a three-year timeline.

Swain wrote “that the current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period; that defendants have consistently fallen short of the requisite compliance with court orders for years, at times under circumstances that suggest bad faith; and that enormous resources — that the city devotes to a system that is at the same time overstaffed and underserved — are not being deployed effectively.”

In November, Swain held the Department of Corrections and the city in civil contempt “for violating 18 provisions of court orders meant to reduce violence, abuse, and dysfunction in the jail system,” Fox News noted.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain has issued her decision on appointing a receiver for Rikers Island pic.twitter.com/B7WAoou3DI

— Courtney Gross (@courtneycgross) May 13, 2025

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has agreed to follow the judge’s orders despite his past stance against a federal takeover.

“If the federal judge made a determination that they want to do something else and they don’t like what we’re doing, it’s a federal judgment,” Adams said at a press briefing Tuesday. “We’re going to follow the rules.”

Mary Lynne Werlwas of The Legal Aid Society, and Debra Greenberger, partner at the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel were among those who praised Swain’s ruling.

“For years, the New York City Department of Correction has failed to follow federal court orders to enact meaningful reforms, allowing violence, disorder, and systemic dysfunction to persist in the jails,” they said, according to Fox News. “This appointment marks a critical turning point—an overdue acknowledgment that City leadership has proven unable to protect the safety and constitutional rights of incarcerated individuals.”

“For decades, Rikers has represented a systemic failure of multiple mayoral administrations — plagued by violence, neglect, and dangerous and inhumane conditions,” said Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer, the city’s former comptroller. “While I applaud this decision, I do not view it as a victory; instead, it is a scathing indictment of our city’s failed leadership.”