McAra grew up in Hull as an expat Scot, and returned to Edinburgh to study at University. McAra's areas of academic research include the sociology of punishment, the sociology of law and deviance, youth crime, juvenile justice, gender justice and comparative criminal justice. She worked first at the Scottish Office doing research evaluating social work criminal justice services. She joined the University of Edinburgh as Lecturer in Criminology in 1995 and has been Dean of the School of Law, a member of the Centre for Law and Society and the Global Justice Academy and Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute. McAra is an associate at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR). From 2019 to 2020, she served as President of the European Society of Criminology.
