A federal takeover of Rikers Island jails is long overdue — and shouldn’t be delayed

Calling the conditions at Rikers Island “dangerous and unsafe,” federal Judge Laura Swain finally cleared the way for an independent manager — that is, a federal receiver — to take control over the city’s jail system.

But her order has the city and the “advocate” crowd recommending candidates for the job, and gives them ’til Aug. 29 to do so — presenting a clear risk that dysfunction will continue even in receivership.

Mayor Eric Adams is right that “the problems on Rikers are decades in the making,” and “didn’t just start” when he took over at City Hall.

That doesn’t absolve him, but it does point to what drives the dysfunction: a gridlock of vested interests that makes serious change near-impossible.

So corruption goes ignored, mismanagement persists, violence permeates the jail system and inmates die regularly from fentanyl overdoses and suicide.

Swain’s order spells out the receiver’s power to control all Department of Correction functions, from personnel to administrative tasks, and rightly expects the new boss to implement a turnaround plan in just three years.

That’s an implicit admission that federal monitor Steve Martin’s oversight didn’t do remotely enough in nine years at a cost of over $22.5 million, yet Swain wants the receiver to “work as collaboratively as possible.”

Sorry: The only reason we’ve ever seen hope in a receivership is it “can actually bring the needed radical change.”

That means implementing work-rule changes outside the collective bargaining process as well as sidelining the Department of Corrections in a major management overhaul — and the authority to overrule City Council interference in the running of the jails.

Everyone’s cheese gets moved, or the receivership will fail as the monitor did.

Indeed, the receiver, backed by Swain, probably also needs to call out the farce of the “replace Rikers” plan, which diverts resources and energy from fixing the jails and their management.

Yes, the receiver must persuade as well as command; the judge can’t award any magic wands.

But appeasing all the “stakeholders” is what produced today’s dysfunction.

Effective leadership requires a decisive break with that failed approach.