After a local man was arrested 22 times last year for shoplifting, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple went public with his concerns.

“I know everybody is sick of hearing about bail reform, but this goes hand and glove with it,” Apple said Thursday following a news conference at Colonie Center — where the Macy’s store at the north end was the site of many of the 22 alleged thefts — to push for legislation that would make it easier for judges to hold repeat shoplifters in jail while they await trial.

Apple’s comments came nearly five years after the Democratic-controlled state Legislature retooled the state’s bail and pretrial discovery laws as part of an effort to reduce systemic poverty and potential injustices that can result from excessive incarceration.

But the latest attempt to rethink — or perhaps re-rethink — the state’s controversial and often politicized bail laws comes at a delicate moment.