Correction officers restrain a person in custody on Rikers Island during a May 2023 incident at the jail complex. Photo from Court Documents

This past September, a delegation from the New York City Bar Association toured the George R. Vierno Center, one of the jails on Rikers Island. What we saw brought into stark relief why a federal court must intervene and appoint its own official—known as a receiver—to run the jail complex, and why the City Bar, along with the Vera Institute of Justice, recently submitted an amicus brief urging a court to do just that.