If the Rikers Island crisis is a raging fire, New York City, over the course of multiple mayoral administrations, has spent years essentially tuning out the alarm while letting the sprinklers run. This is an emergency, and it is time to break the glass and reach for our last resort: a receiver empowered to truly overhaul the misbegotten, mismanaged jails. Federal monitor Steve Martin has diligently put out thorough reports, more than a dozen since his 2015 appointment, detailing rampant violence and chronic absenteeism and persistent management failures, under commissioner after commissioner, …
