Attorney General Eric Holder recently appointed Charles E. Samuels Jr. as the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Samuels has 23 years of distinguished service within the bureau and plans to “increase efficiency, further expand prisoner development and reentry programs and allow for transparency and accountability at the Federal Bureau of Prisons — while remaining true to the BOP’s core mission of protecting public safety,” according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
Samuels began working with the bureau as a correctional officer in 1988 and rose through the ranks. Most recently, he served as assistant director of its correctional programs division.
Samuels, a native of Birmingham, received his bachelor of science in criminal justice from UAB in 1987. He also is a graduate of the Harvard University Executive Education Program.