Many of Bernard Kerik’s biggest admirers are in jail.
To 133,000 city inmates, 10,000 correction officers and 15 wardens, Kerik is something of a revolutionary.
As city correction commissioner, he has helped transform the city jails from volatile powder kegs to orderly institutions where inmates and guards are safer and morale is higher.
Although his triumphs have been largely unnoticed by the general public, officials from as far away as a million-inmate Russian gulag have come to study his initiatives.
They include:
* Reducing inmate slashings and stabbings in the city jails by 90 percent since 1995. Only six incidents were reported last month.
* Prosecuting crimes inside jail, making more than 100 arrests per month where there once were fewer than 10 a month.
* Cutting sick days taken by correction officers from an average of 21 days in 1995 to 14 1/2.
“Bernie Kerik’s reinvigorated the Department of Correction on a level that’s never been seen before,” said Lenny Lemer, president of the New York chapter of the Hispanic National Law Enforcement Association.
It’s not because today’s felons are nicer.
Observers say the results flow from Kerik’s military-style “TEAMS” – Tactical Efficiency Accountability Management System – meetings at which wardens and their deputies are quizzed on virtually everything that happens on their watch, from prisoner complaints to officers’ overtime.
The meetings are not unlike the NYPD’s command sessions at which the top brass are grilled on crime and crime-fighting in their commands.
But the TEAMS meetings are much broader in scope.
From a prisoner who waited too long to see a doctor to a guard who has taken too many sick days, no issue escapes the scrutiny of Kerik and his top aides.
Now, $120,000-a-year wardens who once could not give an accurate inmate head count must not only keep a daily tally, but be prepared to rattle off such statistics as how many are members of gangs like the Latin Kings, its inmate leader, his rank and cell.
“There’s no place to hide anymore, and they know it,” Kerik said.
In 1995 , Kerik, a city detective on the NYPD-DRug Enforcement Agency task force, joined the Department of Correction as first deputy to then-commissioner Michael Jacobson.
“My mandate from Mayor Giuliani was to bring about accountability,” says Kerik, 43.
“We’re doing that by tracking as many indicators as we can, punishing poor performance and rewarding innovation.”
By Giuliani’s account, Kerik has succeeded.
he and Jacobson, who stepped down in 1997 and now teaches at CUNY, have accomplished “something nobody thought possible, which is to dramatically reduce the level of crimes in the city jails,” Giuliani said.
“New York City has without a doubt the most complicated jail system in the country. He’s made it into the very best jail system in America. It’s the one that people try to come and copy.”
Not all of Kerik’s initiatives take place in meeting rooms.
A tour of the James A. Thomas Center on Rikers Island revealed immaculate grounds with inmates on work detail waxing the brown linoleum floors to a high gloss.
An inmate returning from the commissary griped as a guard patted him down in a weapons search.
“We’ve tripled the number of searches in the last three years,” Kerik noted. “We search them at random or whenever they move from one area to another. Now it’s not worth the risk to carry a weapon because they will be prosecuted.”
Kerik pointed to a wall display of banned gang colors and tattoos, and a diorama of confiscated weapons that includes toothbrushes sharpened into knives, and razor blades wrapped in electrical tape.
one of Kerik’s most successful initiatives has been the Gang Intelligence Unit, an undercover operation that has dealt a serious blow to the Latin Kings both in and out of jail by cracking the gang’s covert customs, hand signals and secret identities.
in another groundbreaking move, correction officials recently met with representatives of the city’s five district attorneys to set up a program to provide prosecutors with information on how defendants conduct themselves in jail.
“This is a top priority for us,” Kerik said. “If they are racking up infractions, it will hurt them during plea negotiations of when they go up for sentencing.
“But if they were a model prisoner, that could help them.”