The recently announced federal-court takeover of Rikers Island was a long-overdue attempt to remove a stain on the soul of New York that shames all of us. The jail is being placed under the control of a “remediation manager,” with all major decision-making taken away from city officials who have squandered one opportunity after another to quell the out-of-control violence in our jails.

The vast majority of people detained at Rikers are waiting for their day in court and have not been convicted of any crime. But this year alone, five have died in custody, the same amount as in all of 2024, bringing the total number of such deaths to an estimated 38 since Eric Adams became mayor. One recent death, of a 20-year-old intellectually disabled man named Ariel Quidone, appears to have been clearly preventable: He reportedly begged jail officials for painkillers and medical attention for several days before collapsing in a hallway and ultimately dying of a ruptured appendix.

That contributed to Judge Laura Swain’s receivership ruling. Six correction commissioners, spanning the administrations of Mike Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, and Adams, have all failed to quell levels of violence and medical neglect on Rikers that violate common decency and the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Cruel is exactly how detainees on Rikers were being treated in 2014, when Preet Bharara, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, first filed Nunez v. City of New York, a

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