Albay County Sheriff Craig Apple said the Legislature needs to reevaluate the solitary confinement law because it is making prisons more dangerous.

The HALT legislation limits the amount of time that inmates can spend in solitary confinement.

Apple, who is a former correction officer himself, said county jails and state prisons have never been this violent.

“And the problem that happens here is that our Senate and Assembly have a tendency to see what goes on in New York City and Rikers Island, and they carry it over to the rest of the state,” he said. “Our county sheriffs and our county correctional facilities are some of the best-run facilities in the state, but they seem to think that Rikers Island is how all of them are ran. And that is not true, and it is not fair.”

Sheriff Apple said the effect of the unsanctioned prison strikes is being felt at the county level. He tells NewsChannel 13 that the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision is not taking any new inmates until this situation is resolved.

That means they have to stay in county jails for now.