He was appointed the 40th Police Commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on August 21, 2000. He left office at the end of Giuliani's term in December 2001. From then until 2003, he was employed by a consulting firm formed by ex-Mayor Giuliani, Giuliani Partners. As the leader of the largest municipal police department in the United States, Commissioner Kerik oversaw a uniformed force of more than 41,000 officers, a civilian force of more than 14,500 which included the 3,500 member School Safety Division and 2,000 member Traffic Control Division, and an annual budget of more than $3.2 billion.
Prior to his appointment, Commissioner Kerik served as Commissioner of the Department of Correction, a position to which he was appointed on January 1, 1998. He previously served for three years as the Department of Correction's First Deputy Commissioner and, prior to that, as the agency's Executive Assistant to the Commissioner and Director of the Investigations Division. He is credited with dramatically improving the safety of the city's jail system, reducing inmate-on-inmate violence by 93% over a 5 year period, and staff use of force by 76%. His tenure was also marked by greatly improved agency efficiency, including a 44% reduction in agency overtime expenditures and a 31% reduction in staff sick leave. In 2000, his Total Efficiency Accountability Management System (T.E.A.M.S.) was a finalist for the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award sponsored by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Commissioner Kerik served with the New York Police Department (NYPD) from July 1986 to May 1994, in both uniformed and plain clothes duty. He was later assigned to the most substantial narcotic investigations in the history of the department, resulting in the conviction of more than 60 members of the Cali Cartel.
Before joining the NYPD, Commissioner Kerik served as Warden of the Passaic County jail, the largest county adult correctional facility in New Jersey, in 1986. There, he also served as the Department's Training Officer and Commander of the Special Weapons and Operations Units. In December 1997, Mr. Kerik was appointed by the Mayor to the New York City Gambling Control Commission. Mr. Kerik also chairs the Michael Buczek Foundation's annual fund-raiser that honors law enforcement across the nation.
Commissioner Kerik also spent three years in the U.S. Army as an MP, assigned to Korea and to the 18th Airborne Corps, where he trained Special Forces personnel at the John F. Kennedy Unconventional Warfare Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
This article was originally based on information from New York City's official website [1].
References
Writings by Bernard B. Kerik
"The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice", Regan Books (2001) (autobiography) [1]