Conditions in Alabama’s prison system had been so miserable, for so long, in 1976 that a federal judge took the unusual step of appointing an outside authority to fix them.
By the time the administrator, who happened to be the state’s governor, was discharged in 1989, the prison system experienced improvements that experts called remarkable and innovative. But the progress didn’t last, and the federal government had to once again intervene.
What happened in Alabama and other jurisdictions is now being studied after a federal judge signaled that she is likely to appoint a third-party administrator, known as a receiver, to take control of New York City’s troubled jail system, a last resort that courts have used only when other remedies have been exhausted.
The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, held the city in contempt on Wednesday for failing to carry out court orders to fix persistent problems at Rikers Island after nearly a decade of federal oversight. Since 2015, the jail complex has been operating under the supervision of a federal monitor who has been sounding alarms about worsening violence, unnecessary deaths in custody and ineffective management.
Hernandez D. Stroud, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, said he expected the judge to impose a receiver in the coming months. Judge 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,” he said, paraphrasing the judge. “There’s only one tool left on the table.”
Courts have traditionally used receiverships to protect property and assets. But they began appointing them to protect people’s constitutional rights in the 1950s, when school districts refused to desegregate.
Since then, judges have appointed receivers to fix 12 jails, prisons and detention centers across the country. But their ability to create lasting change remains unknown.
Alabama’s prisons were the first experiment in corrections. The Justice Department sued the state in 2019 after a three-year investigation found that officials failed to protect prisoners from violence and sexual abuse, did not provide safe and sanitary conditions, and allowed officers who used excessive force to go undisciplined. The case is ongoing.
Elsewhere, California’s prisons have been under a receivership narrowly focused on medical care since 2006, with no end in sight. In Hinds County, Miss., a receiver’s presence has been delayed for two years because of litigation over the scope of his authority. And the jail in Washington, D.C., where a receiver made changes to its medical and mental health program between 1995 and 2003 was sued last year by detainees who say the care is inadequate.
Experts and activists say receiverships come with risk and reward. Their success depends on a range of factors, including the administrator’s skills and ability to maneuver political pushback, along with the extent of that person’s powers.
But ultimately, how long changes last depends on the authorities who regain control of the jails when the receiver leaves. Mr. Stroud said he was worried by what happened elsewhere in the past.
“Yes, the primary objective is to fix the constitutional violations,” he said. “But if it only lasts for a few moments after the court leaves the picture, then the whole thing was all for naught.”
Like Alabama, experts say the problems in New York stem from mismanagement of the jails over decades. In New York, commissioners are appointed by mayors, and budgets are approved by the City Council, making progress vulnerable to politics.
Previous receivers have been former corrections officials, law professors or people with experience turning around large organizations.
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 Ms. 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.”
Mr. Stroud added that the judge needs to consider whether, and to what extent, the corrections commissioner will be involved in the reform process.
He said that the commissioner could be instrumental in maintaining reforms after the receivership ends but that the official could also prove to be an obstacle.
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, Mr. Stroud predicted the receiver would be granted expansive control.
Lawyers in the case have already suggested giving the receiver sweeping powers, including the ability to revamp staffing, suspend union contracts and rewrite the Department of Correction’s budget.
However, such an agreement may face resistance. Officials in Hinds County, just outside of Jackson, failed to persuade an appeals court to stop the Mississippi jail takeover, but they succeeded in getting the court to remove the receiver’s power over the budget.
A receiver must also contend with New York City’s powerful corrections unions. Leaders of the unions say the department was headed in the right direction under Mayor Eric Adams, and they expressed worries that a receiver would cut staffing and undo their collective bargaining agreements.
Patrick Ferraiuolo, who is president of the captains association and has worked in the Department of Correction for 43 years, said a receiver was not a good idea for Rikers because he did not believe it had worked anywhere else.
“I don’t see how a receiver is going to fix anything without violating all of the things that we were prohibited to do,” he said.
The Rikers case may find 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.
“I think one of the reasons this has proceeded at a glacial pace is Judge Swain’s interest in developing a robust factual record in the event of an appeal,” Mr. Stroud said.
It is unclear what a receivership would mean for efforts to close Rikers Island and to move to a borough-based jail system, a shift that the city has already delayed.
VOCAL-NY, an organization involved in the push to close Rikers, circulated a primer acknowledging that a receivership could temporarily free the jail complex from politics but noting that it would not fix the problems at the root of the issue.
The group said it would like to see Judge Swain appoint a receiver who, among other things, is committed to closing Rikers by 2027.
Emptying jails and closing Rikers “is the only direct path to preventing deaths and humanitarian violations in New York City’s jails,” the document said, “and a receiver will not necessarily keep this goal as the north star.”
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