ProfessorArlie Loughnan

BA (Hons) LLB (Hons) (Sydney) LLM (NYU) PhD (Lond)

Dr Arlie Loughnan is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Law Theory at the University of Sydney Law School. Her research concerns criminal law, legal theory and legal history. Arlie's particular interests are constructions of criminal responsibility and non-responsibility, the interaction of legal and expert medical knowledges and the historical development of the criminal law.

Arlie joined Sydney Law School in 2007. She holds degrees from the University of Sydney, New York University Law School (NYU) and the London School of Economics (LSE).

Arlie's monograph Self, Others and the State: Relations of Criminal Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2020) explores criminal responsibility from a socio-historical perspective, setting developments in the law against extra-legal developments in responsibility norms and practices. This research was supported by ARC Grant No. DE130100418.

Arlie is also the author of Manifest Madness: Mental Incapacity in Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2012). This book examines the terrain of mental incapacity in criminal law, tracing overlapping and interlocking legal doctrines, current and past practices of evidence and proof, and medical and social understanding of mental order and incapacity. Bringing together previously disparate discussions from law, history, psychology, and philosophy, it analyses the distinct character of mental incapacity revealed by this interdisciplinary approach - 'manifest madness'.

Arlie was Associate Dean (Research) at the Law School 2022-2024. She was Co-Director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Sydney (2017-20), Co-Editor of Sydney Law Review (2013-2017) and Co-Editor of the Institute of Criminology's journal, Current Issues in Criminal Justice (2011-2014). Arlie is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Journal of Criminal Law, and Current Issues in Criminal Justice.

Arlie has strong links to the legal profession and government. She is regularly provides CPD seminars to the profession. In 2020, Arlie was a member of the NSW Bar Association's Silk Committee. She was the Academic Member of the NSW Law Society's Criminal Law Committee (2009-2013), and the Academic Member of the NSW Bar's Professional Conduct Committee (No. 2) (2010-11). In 2010, Arlie served as a member of the Panel of Expert Advisors for the NSW Law Reform Commission reference on Complicity.

In 2026, Arlie will hold the Barbara Huber Visiting Fellowship at Max Planck Institute for Crime Security and Law. Arlie has also held Visiting Fellowships at Cambridge University (2015), the University of Melbourne (2014), University College London (2013), the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (2013) and London School of Economics (2010).