This is a sociological study of a Norwegian penal institution. The author spent two years in the institution, observing and interviewing inmates and staff, the target being to learn the extent to which American prisons fit with prison life in a different culture. He gives a fascinating answer to the question: Norwegian prisons were, at the time of the study, miles away from their American counterparts. The conflicts between prison officers and inmates were certainly there, but they took a ...

Originally published in 1974 and the recipient of the Denis Carroll Book Prize at the World Congress of the International Criminology Society in 1978, Thomas Mathiesen’s The Politics of Abolition is a landmark text in critical criminology. In its examination of Scandinavian penal policy and call for the abolition of prisons, this book was enormously influential across Europe and beyond among criminologists, sociologists and legal scholars, as well as advocates of prisoners’ rights...

A most timely publication in view of current concerns about snooping. Thomas Mathiesen describes how the major databases of Europe have become interlinked and accessible to diverse organizations and third States; meaning that, largely unchallenged, a 'Surveillance Monster' now threatens rights, freedoms, democracy and the Rule of Law. As information is logged on citizens' every move, data flows across borders via systems soon to be under central, global or even non-State control. Secret pl...

Este libro es el producto de las investigaciones realizadas durante el año 2013, que se socializaron en el Congreso Internacional de Política Criminal y Libertad, en donde se discutieron diferentes posturas hacia el “delito” y las diversas reacciones frente a él. La primera parte del libro la hemos denominado “Hacia la desprisionalizacion”, en ella se encontrará: una crítica a la penalidad y al castigo, elementos de una racionalidad neoliberal, y a los sujetos que se comportan como empresa...