Out of prison, out of luck

Something is very wrong with a parole system that on Friday let convicted double cop-killer Herman Bell walk free. Something is wrong with a parole system that failed to either help — or jail — the ticking time bomb wearing a Make America Great Again hat who, screaming anti-Mexican epithets, shoved a bystander onto subway tracks last week.

And something is equally wrong with a parole system that, as highlighted at a Columbia University forum on Thursday co-sponsored by the Daily News, leaves New Yorkers on parole with some of the nation’s highest odds of ending up back behind bars — usually not because they committed new crimes, but because they failed to meet the terms of their release.

It ought to be very good news that New York State now incarcerates fewer than 50,000 people, way down in the past decade — but not if those being released struggle to support themselves or prove dangerous to the rest of us on the outside.

Ticky-tack violations should be treated as such. People who seem to risk others’ lives must be dealt with far more firmly.

Where was the parole officer charged with keeping an eye on MAGA hat wild man Willie Ames, whose rap sheet bursts with violence?

After doing time for attempted robbery, a paroled Ames did a spell in a state-run Harlem treatment center in 2014. He plainly either needed another spell of help or an express ticket to jail. He got neither, until he almost ended a life. The parole board and judges who sentence defendants to out-of-prison supervision ought to have no illusions: They are sending them into a failure factory that cries out for a reboot.