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29 Critical Soc. Pol'y 5 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy29 and id is 1 raw text is: 01 DAVID PRIOR University of Birmingham The 'problem' of anti-social behaviour and the policy knowledge base: Analysing the power/knowledge relationship Abstract The high priority given to tackling anti-social behaviour in current government policy might generate an expectation that knowledge of the nature and extent of the problem would provide an empirical underpin- ning for policy. However, a detailed examination of the state of official 'knowledge' of the problem of anti-social behaviour shows that there are substantial gaps and ambiguities in what is known, and disjunctures between some of the claims made by government about its approach and what the official evidence seems to say. The article explores the reasons for the government's lack of empirical engagement with the 'problem' of anti-social behaviour in the context of the relationship between power and knowledge in current policy. Key words: crime, discourse, empiricism, evidence, localism Introduction One consequence of the modernization agenda pursued by recent governments has been the considerable expansion of, and increased importance given to, sources of knowledge in the policy process. Two of the principal drivers of this growth have been the development of sys- tems of performance management, audit and accountability requiring vast amounts of statistical data (Clarke and Newman, 1997), and the commitment to 'evidence-based policy' requiring the demonstration by social research of the quantifiable effects of public policies (Davies et al., 2000). Policy is of course shaped by many different forms of knowledge, ranging from statistical descriptions of population characteristics, to political, professional or popular discourses embodying claims to truth @ Critical Social Policy Ltd 2009 0261-0183 98 Vol. 29(1): 5-23; 098392 SAGE PUBLICATIONS, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC 10.1177/0261018308098392 5

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