The NYPD’s top transit cop on Tuesday joined a chorus of public officials calling for a lifetime ban of sex-crime recidivists from the subway system.

“We have to watch and wait until they find their victim,” said Chief Edward Delatorre in a hearing of the City Council’s public safety committee, bemoaning how his cops are handcuffed in their fight against repeat transit perverts.

“I would,” Delatorre said when asked if he would support a lifetime ban of incorrigible sex criminals from the subway system by Brooklyn Councilman Chaim Deutsch — who on Monday threw his own backing behind the concept.

As The Post has exclusively reported, cops have implored the MTA for years to lend a hand by barring the worst of the worst repeat criminals from the system, only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears.

Chronic grinders, gropers and public masturbators — some with dozens of arrests to their names — return to the subways time after time, and with the NYPD powerless to arrest them simply for being there, cops are forced to wait for them to victimize someone else before moving in.

MTA insiders have insisted that the most they can do is ask city prosecutors to seek temporary bans as a condition of repeat offenders’ probation deals, but law enforcement sources say the agency could impose lifetime bans if it wanted.