DAs pushing high bail as jail ills soar

The city’s district attorneys express worry about the Rikers Island crisis that includes 12 detainee deaths since December — but that hasn’t stopped their offices from seeking bail high enough to send more suspects to the island’s understaffed and mismanaged jails.

The number of people awaiting trial at Rikers has increased over the past month, and roughly 15% of detainees are being held on nonviolent felonies, according to data compiled by the Vera Institute.

When three of the city’s five district attorneys visited Rikers on Tuesday, the number of people in pretrial detention stood at 4,662, the Vera Institute data shows.

That was up about 1% from the 4,626 prisoners held eight days earlier, on Sept. 13, when a group of state legislators visited the island.

An average of 39 pretrial detainees a day have entered the jail system since Sept. 13, the Vera figures show.

“Between the end of last week and the start of this week, the number of people held pretrial on Rikers increased, and two more people have died,” said Alice Fontier, managing director of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.

“This is the direct result of the ongoing, reckless behavior of district attorneys seeking bail and judges setting it,” Fontier said.

District attorneys say they are doing what they can. “We continue to review the securing orders of those who are being held at Rikers on Queens cases, with an eye toward expediting swift and just resolutions,” said Queens DA Melinda Katz, who visited Rikers on Tuesday with Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez and Bronx DA Darcel Clark.

Staten Island DA Michael McMahon didn’t visit but also expressed concern. “We need to be even more mindful that if there’s a less restrictive means to make sure someone returns to court, we should implement that,” McMahon told the Daily News.

Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. announced Thursday that his office has agreed to release 20 pretrial defendants charged with nonviolent felonies, two charged with residential burglaries without any physical attack, one person charged with assault and another person charged with robbery.

Six more cases are under review and two misdemeanor cases were dismissed where the defendants were jailed on $1 bail and warrants of some kind that required further court hearings.

Another 17 felony defendants could be released under the alternative to incarceration program, Vance’s office said.