The first wave of prisoners released early under Gov. Bill Ritter's plan to save the state millions has exposed the limited potential of this program, as well as its risks.

The first 10 inmates paroled include some unsavory characters, including violent felons, sex offenders and convicts with long rap sheets - the types of people we were led to believe wouldn't be released.

Finding convicts who can be released early also may be harder than the governor believed. Of those who are eligible for early release under the two-year pilot program, the state parole board is turning back far more than it is letting out.

If that continues, the state will save much less than the roughly $20 million originally estimated for each year of the program.

Ritter had little choice but to explore this type of pilot program as he's forced to cut hundreds of millions from a state budget with very little discretionary spending. However, it's difficult to understand how Ritter, the former Denver prosecutor, could have created a situation that saves less money than intended, while releasing inmates with dangerous pasts up to six months early.

Consider the early release of Benny Joe Rael. As documented by The Post's Kirk Mitchell, Rael, 51, is a longtime bad actor. Convicted of sex assault against a child in 1982, Rael has been arrested multiple times for sex offenses, is a convicted drug dealer, and has been arrested for assault threats, possession of weapon, obstructing police, larceny and forgery.

The rationale for his release illustrates the grave difficulty facing the parole board. Rael was most recently serving time for a nonviolent theft conviction. An assessment determined Rael's risk of committing another sex offense to be so low as to not warrant treatment. He was paroled but 16 days early.

Rael was going to get out of prison anyway, but if he's the type of person who is approved for early release, we shudder to think who is being turned down.

After it became clear that Ritter's plans for early release would in fact include violent offenders and child abusers, we urged the parole board to carefully screen early release candidates. It appears that parole board chief David Michaud is doing just that, refusing to release 80 percent of those eligible because of their troubling records.

The Ritter administration and prison officials appear to have miscalculated who would be good candidates for parole - thinking the board would let 80 percent of those eligible out rather than the 20 percent it's currently releasing. To qualify for early release, inmates have to be within six months of mandatory release.

"I'm not going to let someone out early if I don't think it's safe," Michaud said. "I don't care how much money they save or don't save."

Knowing the state needs to control its prison costs - and thinking that mostly drug offenders and the like would be released early - we favored Ritter's plan. But the early evidence doesn't look good.