Freed thugs sow fear in NYC during coronavirus lockdown: Devine https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/freed-thugs-sow-fear-in-nyc-during-coronavirus-lockdown-devine/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons via @nypost

Despite assurances from @NYCMayor de Blasio that only nonviolent, elderly or chronically ill inmates would be sprung, 329 prisoners accused of violent felonies were released from city jails in the three weeks to April 6, at least some under age 30.

With nearly 20 percent of NYPD officers out sick daily, New Yorkers anticipating a “Mad Max” future are taking matters into their own hands.

A West 68th Street block association has asked residents to take shifts with a neighborhood civilian safety patrol.

In Chelsea, a tenants association at London Terrace Towers has hired two private security guards after vandals smashed the windows of the local Gristedes.

Looting of shuttered stores reportedly has risen 75 percent since the coronavirus outbreak, but as fast as cops arrest suspects, they are back on the streets.

As prison activists take advantage of the pandemic to accelerate their decarceration agenda, the city’s jail population has shrunk by more than 20 percent, to the lowest level since 1949, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice boasted last week.

No one objects to the compassionate release of a few elderly or infirm inmates nearing the end of a sentence for nonviolent crimes. But violent felons were never part of the deal.

And where are they supposed to go when they leave jail? The city’s homeless shelters have their own coronavirus problems.

Jails are tailor-made for quarantine, especially now that they are 1/2 empty & inmates are separated. There is better medical care on Rikers than the street.

The mayor’s fixation with decarceration has just made life for law-abiding New Yorkers more scary.