Inmates are now being released based on fear of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s almost a “get out of jail free” pass. They might even get to pass “Go” and collect $200, for crying out loud. I digress. However, the logic goes something like this: There is a pandemic in the U.S., so let’s release some of the most proven irresponsible people we can find and throw them into mainstream society. Let’s release inmates back into the communities they terrorized in the first place. Brilliant.

Need I say more? In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that it’s “unconscionable” that inmates released from Rikers Island have been … committing new crimes. What? Did he say what I thought he said? If you take a morbidly obese kid and leave him in a candy store for 24 hours, what do you expect to be the results? I love sweets too, but criminals commit crime like a fat kid loves cake. Mayor de Blasio complained, “I think it’s unconscionable just on a human level that folks were shown mercy and this is what some of them have done.”

I am beginning to think some of our elected officials are just that; elected. They hold an office because the people who elected them have the same dysfunctional susceptibilities as them.

More than 1,500 NYC inmates have been released due to the coronavirus crisis. California said, “Hold my handcuffs,” and raised the ante. According to the LA Times, California will also release up to 3,500 “nonviolent inmates.” Nonviolent in the state of California means something a little bit different from what you can imagine. “Nonviolent” offenses in the Golden State include: Assault with a deadly weapon, rape of an unconscious person, hate crime causing physical injury, human trafficking involving a sex act with minors, corporal injury to a child, and drive-by-shooting. Yep, you heard it here first folks. The Wild Wild West just got wilder.

Back on the East Coast, de Blasio argued, “We do see some recidivism. I have not seen a huge amount, but any amount is obviously troubling! We’re going to just keep buckling down on it, making sure there’s close monitoring and supervision to the maximum step possible. And the NYPD is going to keep doing what they’re doing.”

The New York Post reported Sunday that at least 50 of the newly released Rikers Island prisoners were rearrested for new crimes in recent weeks — and in some cases were cut loose again.

I would understand if these inmates were 65 and older with preexisting conditions, but this sounds like an inmate-release party.

The releases have helped drop the inmate population at Rikers Island to less than 4,000 for the first time since the World War II era, city officials said. Who cares about the numbers of inmates dropping when they’re being released into the streets freely? I bet NYC residents don’t feel safer. COVID-19 has given locally elected leaders the green light in making really bad decisions.