‘Disturbing’ few wks. puts correx bigs in hot seat

In the wake of accidental inmate releases, deaths at Rikers Island and a shocking clerical error that led to improper recording of inmate phone calls with their lawyers, the City Council is set to grill top jail officials on Monday. With “the story that we read today about illegal recordings of phone calls and a few weeks of a very disturbing pattern around the Department of Correction … I’m very concerned about what’s happening,” City Councilman Keith Powers (D-Manhattan), chairman of the Council’s Criminal Justice Committee, said Sunday.

He was referring to a bombshell Daily News report finding more than 1,500 protected jailhouse phone calls between defendants and their legal advisers were wrongly recorded.

The revelations came after two Rikers Island inmates died within two days of each other and after two suspects in violent crimes were accidentally released from the troubled jail complex. Meanwhile, growth in the city’s inmate population has raised concerns about potential COVID spread. “Everyone understands that COVID has been extremely difficult for the Department of Correction to manage, but the last few weeks have been extremely disturbing,” Powers told The News.

“We’re looking at ways to address these issues,” he added, saying the Council would weigh “further responses” to the phone recording fiasco in particular. The hearing was originally scheduled for March 10, but was postponed when Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann was hospitalized for an undisclosed medical problem. She wasn’t expected at Monday’s session, but Powers said he couldn’t push it back again.

“We don’t want to reschedule again,” he said. “I think now it’s really important that we go forward.”

Mayor de Blasio’s preliminary budget for the Correction Department will also be discussed. His proposed budget of $92.3 billion for the coming fiscal year includes $1.16 billion for the department, an increase of $7.1 million over the current year’s budget.

“It’s clear we’re still spending too much money when it comes to the Department of Correction,” Powers said. “Really, tomorrow is going to be a bigger-picture focus on what’s happening inside of our city jails at this moment.”