Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik slammed news reports of tenuous conditions for border kids at U.S. detention centers, telling Newsmax TV that many county jails and state prisons are in far worse shape.
"I've watched a lot of this footage," Kerik, who managed the city's forces on 9/11, told host John Bachman on "Newsmax Now." "I've run the largest jail system in the United States, Rikers.
"I had 133,000 admissions per year."
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From 1998 to 2000, Kerik was commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, managing an annual budget of $835 million and operating 16 jails and the hospital ward in the massive Rikers Island prison.
"I can tell you from what I've seen, those detention centers and holding centers are just about immaculate," he told Bachman.
"I know people have a problem with a bunch of people sitting around or laying around in a cage.
"But I promise you, if those congressmen and reporters visited a bunch of county jails and state prisons around the country, they're in far worse condition.
"It's not like they're just stuffing these people away and forgetting about them and not taking care of them," Kerik said. "They're being taken care of the best we can."
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