Violent crime is rising, but that didn’t stop the Murphy Administration from freeing 260 more New Jersey inmates on Thursday as part of its Covid-19 release program.
The program launched in October 2020 allowed most inmates to earn credits for early release pursuant to Murphy’s recently-renewed public health emergency. With the return of Murphy’s “emergency” comes the renewal of the program.
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5,300 inmates were let out through October 2021 representing 40% of the state prison population. 260 is just the beginning of additional releases.
The inmate releases wasn’t without consequences. At least three men released under the program were later accused of murder. For example, Jerry Crawford (who was serving time in Bridgeton for burglary) was released on November 4, 2020 and now stands accused of killing Bridgeton resident Davion Scarbrough two days later.
“Governor Murphy failed to learn from his error last time. A man serving time for burglary was released early and quickly went on to killing an innocent person two days later,” Assemblyman Antwan McClellan (R-1) opined on Thursday. “The hypocrisy is, inmates go free and the general public in a lot of ways still feels imprisoned by these mandates. The hypocrisy is, the governor is telling us children can safely unmask in school on March 7, but it’s too dangerous for inmates to serve out their sentences in our prisons today.”
“Are our children safe because our governor is letting criminals back on the street? Davion Scarbrough wasn’t,” added McClellan.
61.6% of New Jersey’s prisoners have received at least one dose of Covid vaccination. Less than 2% of 640,000 Covid tests conducted in New Jersey’s jails have resulted in a positive result.
Is Murphy really worried about health and safety? Or social justice? The evidence continues to confirm that the Democrat governor’s Covid regulations are the product of political science.
“As he has done for more than a year, the Governor is using the pandemic as cover for turning criminals loose in New Jersey neighborhoods,” said state Senator Joe Pennacchio (R-26) in his own statement. “After announcing plans to lift other COVID restrictions and as statewide numbers continue to improve, he’s ready to run through the cell blocks unlocking doors and letting the bad guys run free to protect them from a relatively benign omicron variant of the virus.”
“If the governor was truly concerned about the health and safety of the public, he would allow correctional police officers to work their jobs that they took an oath to perform, rather than making them get vaccinated or fired, and adopt policies that would effectively reduce recidivism rates and deter crime,” McClellan said.
