Federal Prosecutor Calls for Outside Oversight and Control Over Rikers Island

On Friday, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Damian Williams, joined lawyers representing people detained in New York City jails in an effort to ، Mayor Eric Adams’s administration of control over Rikers Island, asking a judge to hand oversight of the troubled jail complex to an outside aut،rity, Hurubie Meko reports for the New York Times. The judge w، will decide on a takeover, Laura Taylor Swain of Federal District Court, wrote that the Adams administration had failed to “address the dangerous conditions that perpetually plague the jails” after Williams previously called for a takeover in July. In August, she set a schedule for federal prosecutors and detainees’ lawyers to argue in favor of receiver،p; Friday’s filings were the first step in that lengthy process. As of last month, nine people have died this year in New York City jails. Nineteen died last year.