Catch and release and party favors in NYC

De Blasio’s newly-released prisoners use their gift cards to buy booze and Juul pods

The ex-inmates have been flooding area booze shops, ever since the recent launch of a soft-on-crime city initiative that provides them with two $25 gift cards, merchants said Saturday.

“Yet to see one person use it to buy food,” Ahmed, a worker at the Plaza Deli Grocery, noted.

In addition to the Metrocards and cash, plans are also in the works to set up newly released inmates with burner phones, the Post reported Saturday.

The handouts are part of a larger initiative from Mayor de Blasio that awards the swag to prisoners released under New York’s new bail reform law. The goal is to incentivize the jail birds to show up for their court appearances, but the scope of the program will cover anyone released from Department of Corrections custody, sources told The Post.

Other goodies will include winter coats, Steve Madden shoes and Mets tickets.

The programs are being run by city-funded non-profits and the whole initiative will cost $500,000, officials said.

Cigs and nips? Don’t leave Riker’s without ‘em!

A spokesman for the mayor defended the giveaways, saying that sending ex-inmates home “with essential resources needed to survive is critical to ensuring the safety of themselves and others, and maintaining our status as the safest big city in America.”