James V. Bennett, director of the nation's federal prisons, is a gentle man of 70 who often sounds like a movie warden with a heart of gold. He speaks of his 22,000 charges as "individuals with hearts, lungs and emotions like everyone else." He frets that "our criminal laws are the most severe in the world." Yet in his 27 years of guarding the likes of Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelley, Bennett has been as hard as he has been soft. Of 700,000 federal prisoners during his tenure, only six have flown...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
