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 underpinning 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.
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