One of the most confounding things about liberals is their penchant for releasing dangerous criminals back onto the streets any time they get the chance, and it seems the coronavirus pandemic is as good an excuse as any to free even more miscreants.
The latest to get in on the coronavirus prisoner release fun is the Monroe County Jail in western New York, which was required by a statewide edict from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to release about 50 inmates, according to WROC-TV in Rochester.
These aren’t just any garden-variety petty thieves or drug users.
Among those released, at least four are registered sex offenders, three of whom are considered Level 3 offenders — meaning they have been convicted of raping minors and are deemed by the state as most likely to reoffend.
If that wasn’t bad enough, nine of the prisoners — including the sex offenders — are being housed at a Holiday Inn Express in Greece, New York, the report said.
The police chief of that town, Patrick Phelan, is just as confused by this insanity as the rest of us.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he told WROC. If you could present an argument to me that makes sense, I’m willing to listen. But this doesn’t make any sense.”
According to Phelan, the hotel is near a residential neighborhood and school. He said he was not alerted beforehand and is scrambling to notify the surrounding residents now that convicted sex offenders will be staying near where their children live or attend school.
“We weren’t told by anyone,” Phelan told WROC. “I think good practice would be that if you’re going to release nine convicted felons — some of them very violent, some of them registered Level 3 sex offenders, which is the highest level — if you’re going to release nine of those people into someone’s community, you might want to give law enforcement the heads up.”
The DOCCS order was meant to release low-level parole offenders in order to prevent a possible coronavirus outbreak in the prison. So far there are no cases of the virus in the Monroe County Jail.
WROC said it reached out to the department for its response to Phelan’s concerns and was told that it made decisions on whom to release based on a “review of the underlying technical violation, not the original crime.”
“So you have a violent criminal that’s done time in state prison who’s been given the chance of parole and not followed the conditions of their parole,” Phelan told WROC. “That’s who you’re talking about right now.”
A statement from the department said that its “top priority remains the public health and safety of New Yorkers during this global public health emergency and this measure will further protect a vulnerable population from contracting and transmitting this infectious disease.”
When it says it wants to “protect a vulnerable population,” the department means prison inmates such as these convicted sex offenders who might catch the virus, not the neighborhood children who are now in danger of becoming the next victim at the hands of a pervert.
Since inmates are wards of the state, it is important to keep their health and safety in mind, of course. Additionally, guards and other personnel are putting their lives at risk should a COVID-19 outbreak happen at their jail.
However, jails exist to keep the bad guys locked securely behind steel bars. Period. This should be so self-evident as to not even be brought into question, regardless of what the latest excuse is to let them out.
Of course, there is no shortage of those advocating for their release anyway.
New York Democrats in particular love releasing criminals, usually illegal aliens, but this time they’re settling for the home-grown variety.
Brad Lander, Brooklyn council member, tweeted his support for releasing inmates on March 22.
“First federal inmate tests positive for coronavirus, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park,” he wrote of the prison in his district.
“Inmates & corrections officers lives are risks. We need to temporarily release older/vulnerable detainees. And stop putting new ones in. Now.”
First federal inmate tests positive for coronavirus, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park.
Inmates & corrections officers lives are risks. We need to temporarily release older/vulnerable detainees. And stop putting new ones in. Now.https://t.co/EShsnMUW6r
— Brad Lander (@bradlander) March 22, 2020
This leftists’ obsession with taking people who are clearly dangerous and releasing them back into society is nothing short of insane.
Phelan is absolutely right that none of this makes sense, especially when convicted offenders enjoy a higher status in the hierarchy of victimhood that governs contemporary liberalism.
In the twisted worldview of a leftist, the protection of sex offenders has more weight than the protection of those they will have new access to victimize.
While it is sort of understandable that children are not valued in a state whose governor championed late-term abortion, it seems otherwise indefensible to allow convicted criminals their freedom on no merits other than their potential vulnerability to infection.
The liberal politicians of New York are bent on putting their constituents’ lives at risk for a chance to virtue signal, and using COVID-19 as an excuse is the most egregious example to date.
The residents of Greece who are hosting these newly freed criminals in their community will have to contend with not only the coronavirus but also the cancer that is liberalism run amok.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.