Man held on Rikers for 19 months becomes first to die in jails in 2025
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A 38-year-old man died on Rikers Island on Wednesday morning.
Read MoreCity Council asks judge to protect their power over Rikers ahead of receivership ruling
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If a federal judge follows through with her threat to strip the city of its control of Rikers Island, she should make sure plans to shutter the dangerous jail complex by 2027 remain in place, attorneys with the City Council said in a court filing this week.
Read MoreCity nominates itself to take over Rikers
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City Hall late Friday told a federal judge that she should look no further than the current Department of Correction commissioner should she choose to strip the city of its control of Rikers Island and hand the notorious jail complex over to a receiver.
Read MoreMayor defends his record on Rikers as federal takeover looms
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Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday defended his administration’s efforts to quell violence and disorder on Rikers Island, a little less than a week after a federal judge said she was leaning toward taking the jail complex out of the city’s hands for its failure to keep detainees safe.
Read MoreRikers captain sexually harassed and assaulted officer, lawsuit claims
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A Rikers Island corrections captain was recently accused of regularly sexually harassing and assaulting an officer who worked under his watch.
Read MoreMonitor says Rikers remains dangerous as judge mulls federal takeover
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As a potential federal takeover of Rikers Island looms over the city, a court-appointed monitor said in a highly anticipated report that violence and dysfunction has continued to plague the jail complex and the agency that runs it over much of the past year.
Read More‘Justice denied’: Survivors of sex abuse behind bars call on city, state to address their lawsuits
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On Wednesday, dozens of survivors of sexual abuse in the city’s jails and state’s prisons called on officials at all levels of government to recognize the hundreds of women and men abused behind bars, expedite the over 2,000 pending lawsuits and generally take the allegations seriously.
Read MoreDOC boss denies knowing about Rikers’ ‘worst-kept secret’
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The head of the city’s Department of Correction had little to say when asked about allegations that officers regularly lock up detainees with mental health issues for days or weeks at a time in solitary confinement, blocking their access to medication and attention from doctors.
Read More‘Who could I tell?’: Council grills DOC after victims detail sexual abuse on Rikers
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Around a year after hundreds of lawsuits were filed against the Department of Correction by New Yorkers who said they were sexually abused while incarcerated on Rikers Island, top officials in the DOC attempted to convince fuming lawmakers on Thursday that they were taking the allegations seriously.
Read MoreFormer Rikers worker says DOC locks mentally ill detainees inside cells for weeks
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Detainees with mental health issues are sometimes locked inside cells for weeks or months at a time without access to their needed medication and left to deteriorate, a former social worker on Rikers Island told the jails’ watchdog board on Tuesday.
Read More‘I cried that whole night’: Families say DOC did little to tell them their loved ones died on Rikers
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A City Council bill discussed Friday would define the procedures the DOC and Correctional Health Services – the branch of the city’s hospital system that provides medical care on Rikers Island – should take to notify an incarcerated person’s emergency contacts when that person is seriously injured, hospitalized or attempts suicide.
Read MoreCan the Department of Correction's new commissioner fix Rikers Island?
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Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie says she can reform the jails on Rikers Island, but decades of dysfunction suggests otherwise.
Read MoreBOC unanimously approves solitary ban rules
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The city’s Board of Correction on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve its rules for the implementation of a new law banning solitary confinement in the city’s jails.
Read MoreJail programming suffers a year after DOC cut nonprofit contract
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The city’s Department of Correction has continued to struggle to provide re-entry services, educational programs, life skills training and other programs to detainees on Rikers Island a year after the agency cut a contract with half a dozen nonprofits and opted to provide the programming themselves.
Read More‘Can’t rehabilitate Rikers’: Borough prez stands by jail closure plan after tour
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Despite seeing improvements during a recent visit to Rikers Island, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards says he believes no amount of refurbishment will be enough to justify keeping the troubled jail complex open – and that a federal takeover of the jail should remain on the table.
