The commissioner of the city’s Department of Correction insisted he’s committed to improving conditions in New York City jails as he appeared before a federal judge Tuesday amid a threatened takeover of scandal-plagued Rikers Island.

Commissioner Louis Molina had been instructed by Manhattan federal court Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain to attend the remote hearing — where she ordered up an “action plan” for implementing changes in the deteriorating jail system.

“I expect real progress,” Swain warned at the end of the court hearing.

The plan is to be drawn up by the city and Steve Martin, the Rikers Island federal monitor appointed by Swain in 2016. It needs to be filed May 17 and will be addressed at a court hearing the week after.

The monitor and the city have repeatedly drawn up security and other plans to implement changes at Rikers Island — but no meaningful improvements have been made in the lockups, which is still plagued by violence, staffing problems and horrific conditions, the feds have argued. 

Manhattan federal prosecutors warned last week they would request Rikers Island be taken over by an independent body if the agency doesn’t improve conditions at the disordered detention facilities. 

Tuesday’s hearing included testimony by lawyers for the Department of Justice and the city, the Rikers Island federal monitor and an attorney for plaintiffs in a class action suit filed more than a decade ago over conditions at the jail complex. 

Molina assured Swain that he was committed to making the reforms that Martin has requested be implemented on Rikers.

“The monitor and I are aligned,” Molina said, adding that he would work to cut through red tape to solve a staffing crisis in the DOC and implement plans to tamp down violence at the jails on the island. 

“We have not passed the point of no return,” Molina told Swain, apparently referring to the threat of a receivership.

The commissioner asserted that he inherited an agency and jail complex rife with issues left over from the Bill de Blasio administration, which he argued divested resources from Rikers because of a political position to shutter the complex. 

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Mary Lynne Werlwas, was skeptical of Molina’s commitment to improving conditions at Rikers, where 15 inmates died last year and three have died so far in 2022. 

“What has transpired in 2022 alone seriously constrains the reasonableness of optimism,” she said, adding that any actions taken by the city so far have been “too little, too late.” 

Martin, the monitor that oversees the jail complex, said he was encouraged by Molina’s leadership thus far and highlighted the fact he had drawn up a plan to deal with violence at the Robert N. Davoren Complex before he confronted him about it. 

“Every time I’ve called on the commissioner he has stepped up,” Martin said of Molina. 

Still, Martin added, there are changes Molina could implement in the upcoming weeks that would make real changes on Rikers. 

“There are actions that he could take between now and three weeks just as he did in the RNDC emergency action plan,” Martin said.