‘Kath’ & release for 191 inmates Jailed on parole violations

Gov. Hochul on Friday said she was ordering the immediate release of 191 inmates locked up on Rikers Island for what she called “technical” violations of their parole from state prison.

Hochul made the announcement before signing into law the Less Is More Act that will stop the state from putting excons back behind bars for missing appointments with their parole officers, violating curfew or testing positive for drugs or alcohol.

The measure was set to go into effect next March, but Hochul said the ongoing crisis at Rikers meant there was no time to wait, calling reports of out-of-control violence and chaos at the massive jail complex “deeply disturbing.”

Hochul also said she was ordering the transfers of around 200 inmates from Rikers to state prisons amid recent admissions by city Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi that planned reforms can’t be made under current conditions.

Hochul said the inmates she was releasing “have served their sentences” for the crimes they committed and “do not need to be incarcerated.”

Early releases could also be ordered at other prisons before the law takes effect, Hochul said, noting that the Rikers situation had to be addressed immediately “to alleviate the pressure cooker, which could explode at any time.”

“This is just an immediate, Rikers-driven situation but, absolutely, people who have met that threshold in other parts of the state — and there are certainly many more — we’ll be looking at the opportunities to release them as well, we just, we just wanted to target this today.”

Hochul said 65 percent of the parolees sent back to prison in New York had committed only “a very technical violation” and that several southern states “are ahead of us on this.”

“New York incarcerates more people for parole violations than anywhere in the country,” she said. “That is a point of shame for us and it needs to be fixed.”

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), among more than a dozen officials to join Hochul at her Manhattan office, echoed that notion.

“And what’s even worse is anytime Alabama has a better criminal-justice view . . . you know we have a problem,” he said.

Hochul said state and city taxpayers would share the cost of housing inmates who get transferred out of Rikers to state prisons and added: “We hope that there’ll even be more after that.”

New York incarcerates more people for parole violations than anywhere in the country.

— Gov. Hochul