Anne Cossins, Ph.D.

Associate Professor in Law at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales

Dr Annie Cossins is an Associate Professor in Law at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales. She is the pre-eminent Australian expert on legal reform in the area of sexual assault and a scholar in theoretical criminology. She is presently the holder of an ARC Discovery Grant (along with J Delahunty) entitled: "Countering misconceptions in child sexual assault cases with expert evidence and judicial directions".

She is the founder and Convenor of the National Child Sexual Assault Reform Committee - a high-level committee which was comprised of all Directors of Public Prosecution, various District Court judges, academics, and Children`s Commissioners (amongst others) which met annually for the past 8 years. A link to its discussion paper on reforms for the prosecution of child sex offences around Australia is available under Dr Cossins' publications.

Dr Cossins was also a member of the Criminal Justice and Sexual Offences Taskforce which was established by the NSW Attorney-General in 2004 after a submission by her and the NSW Rape Crisis Centre to the Attorney-General for the establishment of a taskforce to examine changes to the laws of evidence in NSW and the feasibility of specialist courts for sex offences in NSW. As a result of this Taskforce, a number of legislative changes were made to the substantive criminal law as well as procedural laws concerning the conduct of sexual assault trials in NSW.

Dr. Cossins' recent publications include:

Cossins, A., & Plummer M. (2018). Masculinity and Sexual Abuse. Men and Masculinities, 21, 163-188.
Plummer, M., & Cossins, A. (2018). The Cycle of Abuse: When Victims Become Offenders. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 19, 286-304.
Cossins, A. (2018). The future of joint trials of sex offences after Hughes: resolving judicial fears and jurisdictional tensions with evidence-based decision-making. Melbourne University Law Review, 41, 1121-1159.
Cossins, A. (2015). Female Criminality Infanticide, Moral Panics and The Female Body. Palgrave Macmillan.