One of the thorniest challenges facing Mayor Zohran Mamdani as he takes office is the crisis on Rikers Island.
Under Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, the rate of violence and serious injuries surged against both people in custody and correction officers, while plans stalled to shut down the jail complex and replace it with smaller detention centers in the boroughs.
At least 15 people died in Department of Correction custody last year, or while receiving medical care shortly after their release. Soon, a federal judge will appoint a remediation manager, who will run many aspects of the jail system and work to reduce violence on Rikers Island.
On Tuesday, Mamdani signed an emergency executive order directing jail officials to figure out how to follow several city rules they’ve been violating — namely, a law that restricts the use of solitary confinement. But it doesn’t require any changes right away. Here’s what you need to know:
What does the emergency executive order say?
On the most basic level, the mayor’s order says jail officials can break some city policies — but only for now.
For years, New York City mayors have allowed the Department of Correction to violate certain local laws or rules because they said not enough staff were available to properly run the jails. Mamdani’s order extends the state of emergency temporarily. But it also says jail officials need to come up with a plan by mid-February that would allow the Department of Correction to follow those regulations.
A primary target of the order, according to Mamdani, is a law the City Council passed in late 2023 that placed strict limits on how long incarcerated people are allowed to spend by themselves in a jail cell. Then-Mayor Eric Adams vetoed the law, arguing that the new requirements would make city jails less safe. The City Council overrode his veto, but Adams signed an order blocking the law before it took effect.
Mamdani said in a press release that his order would put New York City “back on track to end solitary confinement as soon as possible.”
“The previous administration’s refusal to meet their legal obligations on Rikers has left us with troubling conditions that will take time to resolve,” he said.
Shayla Mulzac-Warner, spokesperson for the Department of Correction, said in a statement that “safe and humane conditions remain our goal and our responsibility.”
“We will work with the administration to ensure safety for everyone living and working in our facilities, and to address the items raised in the mayor’s directive,” she said.
How did we get here?
The city jails have been in a “state of emergency” since 2021, when Bill de Blasio was in office. COVID-19 was still spreading rampantly through Rikers Island, and so few jail employees were showing up to work that the Department of Correction was struggling to provide basic services, like showers, meals and visits, according to an executive order de Blasio signed at the time. His order threatened discipline for staff who stayed home without permission and also allowed the city to skirt certain laws and rules meant to maintain humane conditions in the jails.
“In the beginning, it was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s really an emergency, and hopefully it’ll resolve soon,’” said Sarena Townsend, a former Department of Correction deputy commissioner under de Blasio’s administration. “Then it just became a routine rubber-stamp signature every five days that everybody forgot about — everybody but, of course, the people incarcerated at Rikers.”
Adams maintained the state of emergency throughout his administration and issued his own emergency order to prevent the implementation of the 2023 City Council law. He repeatedly renewed the order, at times making adjustments to allow jail officials to violate some rules issued by the Board of Correction, an independent agency that oversees the jails.
Board of Correction officials, who are tasked with independent oversight of the jails, declined to comment. Former Executive Director Martha King said in a statement that the board’s regulations “further safe conditions for all inside city jails, and they are not voluntary.”
“It was both prudent and right for the new administration to end a five-year evasion of the Board's standards and authority,” she said.
What does this order signal about Mamdani’s approach to Rikers?
Mamdani has criticized conditions on Rikers Island and pledged to reduce the jail population. Several criminal justice experts said in interviews that the mayor’s order would not guarantee better conditions in city jails but suggested a willingness to push for bold changes.
Townsend said “it would be a mistake” to immediately remove the emergency order and that it made sense to maintain the status quo temporarily. She also said whatever plan the Department of Correction comes up with, as mandated in the order, won’t immediately solve the problems that prompted the state of emergency.
“Right now, skepticism is healthy,” she said. “But I also have hope, I guess, that maybe with this new administration there might be a greater desire for reform.”
Does this mean the state of emergency is going to end soon?
Not necessarily. Liz Glazer, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice under de Blasio, said implementing the 2023 law restricting solitary confinement will pose unique challenges.
“ Solitary confinement is supposed to be a way of controlling behavior in the most extreme instances, and the department isn’t able to even control behavior on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
Glazer said Mamdani’s order to draft a plan to obey the law is “an excellent thing to say.” But she said many plans have been written over the years to improve conditions in city jails.
“ The problem has always been, for the department, the execution of it,” she said.
Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project, said there are several steps the Mamdani administration can take right away to improve conditions in city jails. She suggested that the mayor instruct jail officials to stop detaining people who are under 21 in the most restrictive housing unit, to stop locking people inside of showers and using them as cages, and to allow incarcerated people to have a lawyer or representative help them at disciplinary hearings for alleged misconduct that could result in restrictive housing. Bigger cultural shifts, she said, will take more time.
”Changing this to a professional culture with accountability for simply doing the basics of your job is going to be the long-haul process,” Werlwas said. “But it's what has to get done.”
