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Kerik, out of prison, targets mandatory minimums

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Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, in his first interview since being released from prison on tax fraud and false statement charges, said prison opened his eyes to the "broken" justice system.

“These young men, they come into the prison system. First-time, non-violent offense, a low-level drug offense: The system is supposed to help them. Not destroy them," Kerik said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show that aired on Friday.

Kerik criticized the federal mandatory minimum system for putting people away for 10 years for 5 grams of cocaine, handing NBC's Matt Lauer a nickel.

"When I came into the system, I didn't realize it's a nickel. Hold it. Do you feel the weight of it? Feel it?" Kerik said. “I had no idea that for 5 grams of cocaine, which is what that nickel weighs, you could be sentenced to 10 years in prison. ... That's insane."

As a former police commissioner, Kerik said "no one in the history of our country" has served prison time with his background, and that you have to be behind bars to understand what it's like "to be a victim of the system."

"The reality is you want people to be punished. You want to punish them, okay. Punish them. But don't destroy them," Kerik said. "Anybody that thinks that you can take these young black men out of Baltimore and D.C., give them a 10 year sentence for 5 grams of cocaine, and then believe that they're going to return to society a better person 10 years from now when you give them no life-improvement skills, when you give them no real rehabilitation, that is not benefitting society.”

Lauer pushed Kerik on whether people will be receptive to what he has to say, given the sentiment that he deserved to do his time and so do other criminals. Kerik said his campaign wasn't about him, but about opening eyes.

“I did my time. I'm done. This is about a system that is broken," Kerik said. "The system isn't going to change if you don't open the eyes of the American people in Congress. If the American people and members of Congress saw what I saw, there would be anger, there would be outrage and there would be change because nobody would stand for it.”

Kerik joins a growing chorus of politicians on both sides of the aisle who have advocated reforming mandatory minimums, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Attorney General Eric Holder.