Thomas Mathiesen

Thomas Mathiesen (5 October 1933 – 29 May 2021) was a Norwegian sociologist, particularly known for his work in sociology of law. Considered one of the founders of sociology of law in Norway and Scandinavia, Mathiesen did extensive research on prisons and surveillance technology. Besides criminologist Nils Christie, Mathiesen is one of two Norwegian social scientists covered in the book 50 Key Thinkers in Criminology (Routledge, 2009).

Life and career
Mathiesen grew up in a suburb nearby Oslo, as the only child of Einar Mathiesen (1903–1983) and American-born Birgit Mathiesen (1908–1990). In his youth he appears for a time to have had ambitions of becoming a pianist.

Mathiesen studied sociology at the University of Wisconsin (B.A. 1955). He then returned to Norway, and graduated as M.A. in 1958 (major subject: sociology, minor subject: psychology and social anthropology) from the University of Oslo, where he did his doctorate in 1965 with The Defences of the Weak: A Sociological Study of a Norwegian Correctional Institution, which has since been widely cited. Mathiesen's doctoral dissertation was republished by Routledge in 2013 as part of the series Routledge Revivals.

In 1972 Mathiesen was appointed Professor of sociology of law at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, (emeritus 2004). He was also a visiting professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara (1967) and Berkeley (1975), also the University of Warsaw (1988) and the University of Bremen (1988) among other places.

Together with Nils Christie and Louk Hulsman he was a distinguished representative of the prison abolition movement. He wrote in Norwegian and English, several of his books have been translated into other languages, including Swedish, Danish, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Some of Mathiesen's books in English include The Politics of Abolition (1974), Prison on Trial (1990), Silently Silenced (2004) and Towards a Surveillant Society (2013). His 1965 work The Defences of the Weak was selected for the Norwegian Sociology Canon in 2011.

In the article The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault's 'Panopticon' revisited (1997), Mathiesen presented the concept of the Synopticon or «surveillance of the few by the many», as the sociological reciprocal of Panopticism, which Foucault described in Discipline and Punish.

Mathiesen was one of the inspirers of the British prisoners movement, Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP) and even spoke at their foundation meeting. He also presented a paper at the eleventh symposium of the National Deviancy Conference in September 1972 entitled Strategies of Resistance within a Total Institution.

Mathiesen's autobiography, entitled Cadenza: A Professional Autobiography, was published by British publisher European Group Press in fall 2017.

Publications and articles (selections)

 * Mathiesen, T. (1965) The Defences of the Weak: A Sociological Study of a Norwegian Correctional Institution, London: Tavistock
 * Mathiesen, T. (1972) Beyond the Boundaries of Organisations, California: Glendessary Press
 * Mathiesen, T. (1974) The Politics of Abolition, London: Martin Robertson
 * Mathiesen, T. (1983) "The future of control systems - the case of Norway" In: Garland, D. & Young, P. (eds) The Power to Punish, London: Heinemann
 * Mathiesen, T. (1986) "The Politics of abolition", Contemporary Crises 10: 81–94
 * Mathiesen, T. (2004) Silently Silenced, U.K.: Waterside Press
 * Mathiesen, T. (2010) ''Prison on Trial: A Critical Assessment. London: Sage.
 * Mathiesen, T. (2013) Towards a Surveillant Society, U.K.: Waterside Press
 * Mathiesen, T. et al. (2015) The Politics of Abolition Revisited, U.K.: Routledge
 * Mathiesen, T. (2017) Cadenza: A Professional Autobiography, U.K.: European Group Press