16 research outputs found
Decolonising drugs in Asia : the case of cocaine in colonial India
This article examines a drugs trade in Asia that has been largely forgotten by historians and policy-makers: cocaine. It will briefly trace some of the contours of this commerce and the efforts to control it. It will also assess how successful these efforts were. The article is designed to contribute fresh perspectives on recent controversies in the historiography of drugs in Asia to argue that the agendas and agency of consumers are central to understanding why markets have formed there for psychoactive substances in the modern period
Remembering probation in Scotland
Set within the contexts of probationâs upcoming centenary in Scotland (in 2005) and the current debate about the future of criminal justice social work in Scotland (and probation in England and Wales), this article provides an account of the early history of probation in Scotland, focussing on the rarely discussed period between 1905 and 1968. Following Nellisâs (2001) injunction to develop a âhistorically tutored memoryâ as a defence against the narrowing of our visions for the future, and drawing on Vanstoneâs (2004) recent work on the history of the service in England and Wales, the article pieces together and seeks to understand a significant change in Scottish probationâs core identity and purpose from providing supervision as an alternative to punishment to providing âtreatmentâ as a means of reforming offenders. In the concluding discussion, the article briefly summarises the subsequent move towards a welfare-oriented approach after 1968 and, more recently the drift towards public protection as an overarching purpose (Robinson and McNeill, 2004). The article concludes that the current debate in Scotland should shift from âsecond orderâ questions around organizational arrangements to âfirst orderâ questions around which aspects of these various purposes and identities should endure in the 21st century