Another jail fail on security screening

A Department of Investigation agent posing as a correction officer waltzed right into two city jails with a trove of contraband — including drugs and scalpel blades — even after the metal detectors went off, according to a blistering report released Thursday.

The undercover operation found that the Department of Correction’s security-screening measures haven’t improved since a similar sting was conducted three years ago.

“The problems remain, and a new undercover operation smuggled in drugs and weapons just as easily,” said Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters.

“Further, DOI’s investigation found that this problem extends beyond Rikers Island and to the city’s localized borough facilities.”

In the latest sting, a DOI investi- gator smuggled in $5,000 worth of banned goods — including two scalpel blades, 26.8 grams of marijuana and five strips of suboxone, a prescription opiate — into the Manhattan and Brooklyn Detention centers in September.

Metal detectors went off at both facilities — but the agent went through checkpoints without even a manual search, the report said.

At the MDC, the undercover investigator took off his belt, shield and shield backing, and the mag- netometer sounded the alarm.

But the correction officer at the front desk didn’t even acknowledge the alarm, and no one stopped the undercover agent, according to the report.

The investigator then entered the detention center through the Criminal Court entrance — and again triggered the metal detector.

This time, a gate officer relied on the honor system, asking the investigator if he had any “weapons, sharp objects or drugs.”

When the investigator replied “no,” he was ushered through without being frisked.

Since DOI’s 2014 undercover security test, authorities have arrested more than two dozen Correction Department employees for smuggling.

Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann said the agency has already started implementing “significant reforms.”