Justice is not always served when those who commit heinous crimes are locked up for life. When parole is part of the deal, it becomes a life sentence for their victims’ families.

Such is the case with Charles Jaynes and Bob Curley, father of Jeffrey Curley.

Jeffrey was only 10 years old in 1997 when Jaynes and accomplice Salvatore Sicari lured the boy into a car in Cambridge with the promise of a new bike. The boy was molested, murdered and dumped in a river in Maine. His remains were found in a Rubbermaid box packed with concrete.

Jaynes is serving life plus 10 years for kidnapping and second-degree murder. He, unlike Sicari, is eligible for parole. Jaynes gets to make his next plea for freedom in June.

For Bob Curley, it’s a fresh replay of a recurring nightmare, fighting to keep the man who murdered his son behind bars.

“He’s as bad as they come,” Curley told the Herald in 2020. “People don’t know the magnitude of his evil. People should be terrified if this guy is ever let out on the streets again.”

It shouldn’t be a grieving father’s job to keep a killer behind bars. And reliving a child’s murder every time the perpetrator is up for parole adds yet more pain to survivors of homicide.

In 2020, Curley said he worried Jaynes may win his freedom in the future as the story of Jeffrey’s abduction and murder fades.

“I won’t be here forever,” he said. “But people need to never forget.”

Our justice system, which makes criminals into victims and renders victims all but powerless, is designed to let the stories of innocent lives taken brutally and too soon fade from memory.

Consideration is given to the incarcerated, not the grieving. In 2009, Curley accused prison bureaucrats of “tearing up” the memory of his murdered son by first blessing, then rescinding, a funeral furlough for Jaynes. Curley noted at the time that Jaynes had been let out for two other family funerals.

Jeffrey Curley didn’t get the chance to comfort loved ones at family funerals — or be with his family at any events after the age of 10. He never got to see his dad beam with pride when graduating high school, or make him a grandfather. And these losses are cruelly carved a little deeper each time Curley learns that Jaynes is up for parole.

“They don’t understand the hurt and the pain,” Curley said at the time. “It’s killing me. Enough is enough.”

What’s worse is that he is far from alone. Survivors of homicide and assault around the country are robbed of closure as killers and rapists make regular bids for freedom. Once more, they make the trek to a parole board hearing, relive the ordeal they or their family member went through, describe the devastation left behind, and hope the board listens.

This is an injustice, played out across America too many times.

Curley, unfortunately, knows the drill, knows what he’ll face in June. And he’s not just doing this to underscore justice for Jeffrey or fight for his memory.

He’s doing this for all of us.

“Jaynes was a serial killer in the making,” said Curley. “There’s no way he should be let out.”

Activists blast life without parole sentences as being too harsh on criminals. It’s a good bet they’ve never had to bury a child whose body was found in a box packed with concrete.