Sanford Bates

Sanford Bates, who lived from 1884 to 1972, was an American public administrator and politician who became the first Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons, leading the newly created agency from 1930 to 1937 within the Department of Justice. Before that federal appointment he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and he later headed the New Jersey Department of Corrections from 1945 to 1954. He served as president of the American Prison Association in 1926, reflecting a career spent largely in the administration and reform of American penal institutions.