Is the state’s early release of non-violent inmates going to immediately create a public safety issue throughout the state?

Of course not.

But state officials are deluding themselves if they think this won’t be the only time the state’s lack of corrections officers is going to mean releasing inmates early in order to maintain safe staffing levels in prisons unless something changes. State officials are also deluding themselves if they think they can continue paying the National Guard tens of millions of dollars a month to maintain what were already poor staffing levels in the state’s prisons.

There has been a staffing crisis in state prisons for years, with that staffing crisis leading to increasing attacks on corrections officers. Whether correction officer misbehavior toward inmates caused inmate attacks on prison staff or inmate attacks created increased correction officer misbehavior is really a chicken and the egg debate. What needs to happen is proper staffing and avenues of punishment for misbehavior to relieve the pressure cooker atmosphere inside state prisons.

The mess that has been made of New York’s prison system needs to be dealt with quickly. Most of us aren’t seeing firsthand effects of the state’s mismanagement of the prison system yet. This round of early prisoner releases doesn’t change that. But future rounds could. The law of big numbers says that at some point, releasing more inmates early will put people back on the streets who will commit crimes against the law-abiding public.

Many New Yorkers already aren’t happy with the state of crime and punishment in New York. The state’s inability to adequately correct the behavior of those convicted of crime only increases the general public’s unhappiness with the situation.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has to do whatever is necessary to boost the ranks of corrections officers now, not over a three-year period, and certainly before more rounds of early releases are needed. Releasing inmates early due to the state’s own incompetence running a prison system sends a message to crime victims and to criminals – court-imposed sentences aren’t worth the paper they’re written on because the state is choosing the easy solution to its prison staffing situation rather than doing the hard work to hire more corrections officers so prisons are properly staffed. That hard work may include eating some crow and asking fired corrections officers to come back to work or walking back prison reforms to help entice more people to become corrections officers.

The state made this mess. The state has to clean it up.