For the first time in more than a decade, senior officials of the New York Police Department are to take questions from City Council members in an oversight hearing today designed to evaluate measures police brass are taking to prevent corruption among the city’s 37,000 officers.

According to an internal briefing memo sent to council members last week and obtained by The New York Sun, the first agenda item in the hearing will revolve around the circumstances surrounding two retired police detectives indicted March 9 by a federal grand jury last month for aiding in eight murders and other gangland crimes on behalf of the Luchese crime family. The indicted detectives, Louis Eppolito, 56, and Stephen Caracappa, 63, were returned to New York last week after being held without bail in a Las Vegas jail and face trial in what is being called the most egregious case of corruption in the Police Department’s history.

Other items on the hearing’s agenda, according to the briefing memo, include the recent arrests and indictments of five police officers in the 13th Precinct for accepting bribes from a vendor of counterfeit goods in Chelsea. According to that indictment, unsealed March 3 in Manhattan Criminal Court, the group of police officers, which included a detective with 20 years’ experience and a patrolman with 17 years’ experience, accepted bribes from the vendor in exchange for privileged information on criminal matters, and also used their power to write summonses and issue tickets to quash competitors selling counterfeit goods. If convicted on the charges, the officers face up to 7 years in prison. All have pleaded not guilty.

The chairman of the council’s Committee on Public Safety, Peter Vallone Jr., Democrat of Queens, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the recent allegations made against Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa, as well as the other indicted police officers, have “raised serious questions” about how the Police Department monitors itself.

“What you seem to have here is a situation where the fox is guarding the henhouse, and that is not okay,” Mr. Vallone said.

The allegations against the police officers, he said, reinforce the argument that the city should create an independent agency with prosecutorial authority to act as a watchdog. Currently, the civic bodies that monitor the department are the city’s five district attorneys; the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which reviews allegations of police misconduct but is not linked to prosecutorial authorities, and the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, which refers investigations to the police commissioner and the district attorneys.

In 1995, in response to allegations that police officers were selling narcotics and assaulting suspects, the city also created the Commission to Combat Police Corruption, a mayoral agency that acts as an independent monitor and releases annual reports.

Members of the commission, along with representatives from the district attorneys and groups critical of department practices, are also scheduled to testify at today’s oversight hearing.

For the Police Department, the chief of the Internal Affairs Bureau, Charles Campisi, and the chief of the department’s Personnel Bureau, Rafael Pineiro, are scheduled to testify.

According to the briefing memo, council members also plan to question police brass about management issues within the Recruitment and Internal Affairs bureaus. In February, the Commission to Combat Police Corruption issued a report analyzing the background checks and screening processes for new recruits. In some cases, the report concluded, the department’s Applicant Processing Division failed to follow its own guidelines and conduct thorough background checks. The result was that some recruits with checkered records could join the police force.

The commission also found that the Internal Affairs Bureau was plagued with retention problems, and on average its officers, mostly sergeants and lieutenants, requested transfers every two years. The inherent stigma of cops chasing cops has led many officers to complain about becoming social outcasts in the department.

Internal Affairs officers also complain about pay. Because they tend to work more regular shifts, they cannot earn as much overtime pay – the average for the police is estimated at $15,000 a year – which places them at a financial disadvantage compared to other officers, the commission reported. With many of the Internal Affairs Bureau’s most senior officers having retired, and with new officers looking for early transfers, the commission found, the quality of investigations conducted by Internal Affairs officers has suffered. While he is not yet advocating the immediate creation of an independent prosecutorial body to monitor the department, Mr. Vallone said the lack of an official and permanent watchdog should be explored.