STILL IN‘CORRECT’

More bad dudes hired as jail staffers

The guys behind bars aren’t the only ones with arrest records inside city jails.

A Department of Investigation report scrutinizing a random sampling of Department of Correction hires from 2016 found that 83 out of 291 — some 28 percent — had arrest records that should have raised red flags but didn’t.

The spotty records should have disqualified some job candidates or at least marked them for monitoring, but many applicants sailed through the hiring process — only to be busted later for offenses such as smuggling contraband or engaging in sex with inmates.

“DOI continues to arrest correction officers who have red flags in their backgrounds that should have precluded their hiring,” said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters.

The findings come after Correction claimed it cleaned up its act in response to a previous DOI report in 2015 on the same lax hiring practices.

“While DOC accepted DOI’s recommendations in 2015, DOC’s implementation has fallen short of what is necessary to adequately reform the hiring process,” the new report found.

Some of the hires were doozies: Torray Riles of The Bronx was hired in December 2016 despite having been arrested eight months earlier for assault, menacing and harassment, the report says.

In January, he was arrested on the job at Rikers Island after being busted by DOI’s K-9 unit trying to smuggle 26 grams of pot concealed in his underwear. That case is making its way through court.

In another case, DOC hired an officer who left the state correction system for having “an inappropriate relationship” with an inmate.

A third job applicant had been arrested for domestic violence — and his rap sheet was in his employment file.

DOC officials said candidates should be immediately disqualified if they have a felony conviction, a misdemeanor domestic-violence conviction, an existing order of protection, multiple driver’s-license revocations, a currently suspended license or if they fail pre-employment drug screening.

DOI concluded that Correction “did not use basic investigative tools, including running credit checks and verifying personal information through public-record database checks,” but instead relied on “an inefficient pen-and-paper application” process.

The DOI report said at least 10 of the applicants it scrutinized should not have been hired.

Correction spokesman Peter Thorne issued a statement saying the 10 got jobs before the agency “revamped its hiring practices and strengthened its investigative procedures to better identify unqualified applicants in 2016 as a result of DOI’s prior recommendations.”

DOC says it has fired five and is investigating the other five. But many of the new questionable hires remain on the job.