Harold Clarke grew up in the Canal Zone in Panama. After college in Nebraska, he joined the Nebraska Department of Corrections in 1974 as a Counselor. He rose through the department, becoming Warden at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in 1987. In August 1990, he was appointed Director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, a position he held until 2005. In 2005, he began his role as Secretary of the Washington State Department of Corrections. In 2007, he took on a new role as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.

On November 15, 2010, Harold Clarke was appointed Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections by Governor Robert F. McDonnell; he was reappointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in 2014; reappointed in 2018 by Governor Ralph Northam; and in 2022 by Governor Glenn Youngkin. He retired effective November 2023.

Mr. Clarke has served with distinction in various professional organizations, including as President of the American Correctional Association and President of the Association of State Correctional Administrators. In 2016, Mr. Clarke was inducted as a Fellow into the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), chartered under Title 36 of the United States Code in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan. He is also a Trustee of the Academy of Professional Dialogue.

He has received many awards throughout his career, to include the Michael Francke Award from the Association of State Correctional Administrators (1997); the Washington State Governor’s Office of Financial Risk Management Pioneer Award (2005); the Legacy Award from the Association of Women Executives in Corrections (2007); Reentry Champion Award from Offender Aid and Restoration Inc. (OAR) (2012); E.R. Cass Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Correctional Association (2014); the Tom Clements Innovation Award by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (2019); the Virginia Governor’s Honor Award for Personal and Professional Excellence (2019); William Hastie Award for Leadership from the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice (2021); Correctional Leadership Award from Vital Core (2022); and most recently the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska at Omaha.