Bernard E. Harcourt is an American legal scholar, criminologist, and critical theorist, known for his influential work on punishment, surveillance, and the politics of security. He serves as the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and has written extensively on the interplay between neoliberalism, mass incarceration, and predictive policing. Harcourt’s research critically examines how economic and political rationalities shape legal systems and social control mechanisms.
Harcourt’s scholarship bridges critical criminology, legal theory, and political philosophy, offering a rigorous critique of actuarial justice, predictive policing, and the commodification of punishment in neoliberal societies. His concept of the “illusion of order” challenges the assumption that intensive policing and mass incarceration produce security, instead framing them as mechanisms of governance and inequality.
