From top cop to ex-con, Kerik slams U.S. prison system

He has one of the most glittering resumes in the security business. The president of the United States said so himself when he tapped Bernard Kerik for one of the top posts in his administration.

Kerik never got the job. Revelations of tax fraud and corruption landed him in court and then in prison. And those 36 months on the other side of the bars have transformed Kerik’s views of America’s criminal justice system.

“If we continue to incarcerate black men at the same rate we have for the last 30 years, 30 years from now, probably 75 percent of every black man in this country is going to be incarcerated,” Kerik told “America Tonight.” “Is that what we want? Is that what the system was created for? The system is broken.” 

Kerik knows the justice system from many sides. He’s been a military police officer, a warden, a beat cop and commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections, where he oversaw 16 jails, including Rikers Island. In 2000, he was named New York City police commissioner. In 2001, he helped then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani lead the city’s badly shaken police officers and firefighters out of the rubble of the 9/11 attacks. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration appointed him as Iraq’s interim minister of interior.

And then, in 2004, the president nominated Kerik to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

“And I believe rightfully so,” said Kerik. “I think I could have done a great job. I know I could have done a great job. My background and history speaks for itself.” 

The ascent was all the more staggering given Kerik’s starting point. His mother was an alcoholic prostitute murdered by her pimp. Kerik was a high school dropout, who later went back to get his GED.

“And one day I’m standing in the Oval Office with the president of the United States … He’s asking if I’d like a job. And he wanted me for that job,” said Kerik. “Which is sometimes very insane when I think about it, given where I came from. But this is America. And you know, that’s what happens in America.”

Now, if he were to advise someone nominated for a top administration spot, he has a different take: “Don’t do it.”

Almost as quickly as he was anointed, Kerik was nailed on allegations that he had hired a nanny who carried phony documents and was tarred with whispered allegations of ties to shady contractors, even organized crime. He was forced to withdraw his nomination.

“Listen, everybody has skeletons in your closet,” he said. “What happens when you become the target of the political arena, in a circumstance like this, it can be quite devastating.”