Self, Others and the State

Arlie Loughnan is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Law Theory at the University of Sydney, and Co-Director of the Institute of Criminology, University of Sydney. She is the author of Manifest Madness: Mental Incapacity in Criminal Law (2012).

• Introduction; Part I. Rethinking Criminal Responsibility: 1. Space and time in criminal responsibility; 2. The significance of criminal responsibility; Part II. Responsibility in Criminal Law: 3. Modernisation of form and process: criminal responsibility at the turn of the twentieth century; 4. The 'birth' of Australian criminal law: the role of criminal responsibility in the mid-century; 5. Peak responsibility?: Codifying criminal responsibility in the late twentieth century; Part III. Criminal Responsibility in Relation: 6. Self; 7. Others; 8. State; Conclusion.

'This is a new and exciting addition to the burgeoning critical literature on criminal responsibility. Loughnan's focus is on the ways that criminal responsibility is linked to, and organises, wider networks of social responsibilities. This novel approach allows us to see how the narrow question of criminal liability is underpinned and shaped by broader social and institutional framings of responsibilities, giving novel and important insights into what Loughnan calls the 'social life' of the criminal law. These new theoretical insights are developed through an account of the development of criminal responsibility in twentieth-century Australia. This is an important new book and should be essential reading for anyone interested in the history and theory of the criminal law.' Lindsay Farmer, University of Glasgow