The parties also asked that Judge Swain hold the city in contempt for violating a 2015 agreement that required it to make sweeping reforms. A spokesman for the city’s Law Department, Nick Paolucci, said on Saturday that the administration had made progress to address longstanding problems at Rikers and that receivership was not the solution to fix the jail system. Mr. Adams has not named a successor. The city will have a chance to respond to the filings, and then the plaintiffs will have another opportunity to answer, he said, adding that it could be well into next year before Judge Swain makes a determination on the question of receivership. To date, the city has failed to grasp the “urgency and severity” of the crisis it has created, said Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society.

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Persons: Swain, Nick Paolucci, Williams, Louis A, Molina, Adams, ”, Hernandez D, Stroud, Judge Swain, Mary Lynne Werlwas Organizations: city’s Law Department, Legal Aid Society, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law Locations: Rikers