Prisons and jails throughout New York state are making adjustments to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Monroe County, the sheriff spoke about the decision from the state to mandate the release of inmates in the effort to curb the spread of the virus.

“This is absolutely absurd what occurred, and to release 1,100 inmates across New York state on a Friday night after 5:00 p.m. and none of the social service people are in place, none of your jails are prepared for it. It was just a terrible move," said Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter. 

He says there was no warning about the mandate from the New York State Division of Parole to release 51 inmates.

The sheriff’s office says all of the inmates released were interviewed individually, none showed flu-like symptoms upon release, and all of the released individuals had been incarcerated in the Monroe County Jail for at least 14 days.

“Our local parole officers said, we have a list, but it didn't come from even a local parole person. So, for almost eight hours, working from about 5:00 on Friday night to about 3:00 in the morning Saturday morning, we worked with parole. We worked with the human services folks, and we worked with the inmates and took 51 inmates out of the jail," said Sheriff Baxter.

“You want to do something like this, you give us plenty of time to prepare, you give us time to look at each and inmate, what do they need when they leave? You don’t do it on a Friday at 5:00 p.m... But with that, the deputies...worked hard into the night,” he said. “We didn't want 51 parolees wandering the streets of Rochester and Monroe County.”

In the meantime, the sheriff’s office has a number of initiatives in place to keep deputies and inmates safe, including a mass cleaning effort.  

“The inmates and the deputies are continuously cleaning, they are a part of it, they're working as a team in there to keep that place as clean as possible,” Baxter said. “That is a different work environment working inside that jail normally, and then you throw in the anxiety with (coronavirus) and it just raises it up to that next level."

There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the jail between inmates or deputies. However, the sheriff says 13 deputies are in voluntary quarantine.