joining me is bernard kerik. mr.kerik later served as new york's police commissioner, a position he held on 9/11. he was nominated to be secretary of homeland security, in 2009 he pled guilty to tax fraud and other charges and served three years in federal prison. thanks for being with us. >> thanks john. >> let me start with this question and sort of get this out of the way. there may be people who watch this and say what sort of credibility does bernard kerik have when he's gone to prison and served in a federal prison to talk about this issue? >> when i took over at rykers as the first deputy, over a six year period, i reduced violence by 93% and took from it one of the worst jails in the nation to an international model. of safety and security. >> in fact an iron hand at rykers island drastically reduces violence. that was in 1999. what did you do to reduce violence at rykers? >> most importantly it was accountability. it was accountability, it was leadership it was getting the staff the resources they needed, th

thb out. >> as a result of kerik's practices, violence inside the jails has steadily decreased. today, cell searches inside rikers look far less like a military operation. >> all right, gentlemen, everyone face the wall, put your hands up on the wall, gentlemen. >> you search them, you should search all of them. the inmates are very ingenious in the way they try to hide things. they've been known to put things inside their belts. inside different crevices inside their sneakers, inside their shoes, inside their socks. a lot of times, they try to put things inside their underwear, so we check everything, but we're not allowed to go in their underwear. but we do check them and check them out thoroughly as best we can. and we look into everything that they have. we check their paperwork, anything that they would have with them in their hands is searched. >> we have been searching a lot more intelligently. we share information. we have confidential informants. we're more proactive. we were very reactive in the past. we're more proactive in corrections. that has been the reason for th