James Van Benschoten Bennett, born August 29, 1894, in Silver Creek, New York, was a top American penal reformer and prison administrator, serving as the second director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 1937 to 1964, after Sanford Bates.

Bennett, a WWI veteran, began his career as an investor for the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency while taking night classes in law at George Washington University. In 1928, Bennet published a comprehensive study on the U.S. prison system, calling for wide reforms due to inhumane and improper operations making the prison system unfit for rehabilitiation. This led to the development of the Bureau of Prisons. James Bennett strongly opposed such federal prisons as Alcatraz and on the policies of captial punishment, pushing for more vocational training in prisons and services aimed at reintegration to society.

Bennett held memberships and presidencies with many domestic and international institutions including, U.S. delegations to the International Penal and Penitentiary Congress, the United Nations' Congress on the Prevention of Crime, the National Association for Better Broadcasting, American Correctional Association (ACA), and was chairman of the American Bar Association Section on Criminal Law.

Just before America's entry into WWII, Bennett and the Bureau of Prisons pushed for racial integration within the federal prisons, ending Jim Crow laws and "southern pratices" of segregation of prisoners.

James V. Bennett died, age 91, on November 19, 1978.