Leaving monsters like Jamel McGriff free to kill is what ‘parole reform’ now means

Now the courts aren’t letting Jamel McGriff walk free — far too late for Maureen and Frank Thomas Olton, the elderly Queens couple he allegedly tortured to death.

That the parolee, a violent career criminal and sex offender, was at loose and able to kill counts as yet another sick triumph of New York’s criminal-justice “reformers.”

This latest crime is heinous: a home invasion followed by five hours of abuse culminating in murder and arson.

Police collared him Wednesday after a three-day manhunt, for (we hope) the final time.

Yet he was on parole, released in 2023 after serving nearly 17 years of a 20-year sentence for robbery, sexual molestation and attempted assault, and had never registered as a sex offender (as conditions of his release required) when he became a prime suspect in two recent Manhattan robberies.

The failure to register would have sent him back to prison — except that Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2021 signed “Less Is More” into law, ensuring that “only a few” parole violations would no longer matter.

And so now 85% of parolees who reoffend still get to stay free.

Nor is that the only way reformers have turned parole in a joke.

In 2023 (around the time of McGriff’s release), the Legislature eased eligibility standards to allow the parole of more incarcerated felons.

And Hochul has followed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in naming “let ’em loose” lefties to the state Parole Board, even as lawmakers have revised the rules to mandate the release of ever-more cons.

Hochul may protest that she “has” to pack the board, because state Senate No. 2 Mike Gianaris and his fellow progressives refuse to confirm anyone who might get tough — but that simply means she’s afraid to make a public fight over the issue.

Cuomo may have made the same calculation on his watch, or he may have been more actively pandering to then-rising sentiment in the party as he eyed a run for the Democratic presidential nomination; again, it’s a distinction without much difference.

Leading mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani co-sponsored Less Is More with his fellow Democratic Socialists, since they all basically believe that jail and prison are evil and the only real road to greater public safety is more social workers and “violence interrupters.”

The DSA’s “Agenda for Decarceration” calls for eliminating all cash bail, repealing all mandatory minimum sentences, decriminalizing “sex work” and more.  

Nor has Zoh repudiated any of those principles.

Heck, Mamdani in his first Assembly run said the city should close the Rikers Island jails without building any replacements at all.

Until “moderates” start loudly, actively opposing the progressives’ criminal-justice “reforms” all across the board, rather than simply trying to patch the most obvious madness, voters will have to conclude that a vote for any Democrat is a vote for more crime.