Exploring evidence utilisation in a heavily politicised policy area, this paper suggests that established models of research utilisation provide inadequate grounds to conceptualise the evidence and policy relationship in this context. This is because they operate at too high a level of abstraction and have a narrow understanding of the association. Using recent developments in UK drug classification policy as a case study, a newer ‘processual model’ is (tentatively) advocated. This highlights the complexity and nuance of the policy process and its accompanying use of evidence which, it is claimed, more accurately depicts the evidence and policy relationship in this particular scenario.

The inherent problems and limitations of managing risk and uncertainty are examined in a salient case setting – the English NHS. The ‘dark-side’ of simply trusting professionals to pursue their own craft, as acknowledged by Sennett, has been politicised to under-gird an increased use of quasi-markets, via the choice agenda, and governance. It is argued that these alternatives to trust – price and control – are further dysfunctional still. The innate tendencies of governance, and therefore choice, to lose sight of patient care are even more pronounced than the fallibility of professionals. A new, qualified form of trust is proposed in resolution.

Combating long-term unemployment remains a central strand of policies to promote social and labour market inclusion. One area of increasing concern is that the long-term unemployed (and especially those residing in disadvantaged communities) can find themselves isolated from the diverse social networks that can contribute to effective job seeking. This article draws on interviews conducted with 220 job seekers in two areas of high unemployment within the city of Glasgow to investigate: whether long-term unemployed people in these areas struggle to access social networks for job search; and the extent to which long-term unemployment is in itself associated with a more general erosion of social/community relations and a withdrawal from what has been termed the ‘tertiary sphere of sociability’. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential role for social policy in seeking to help the long-term unemployed and other job seekers to develop and broaden social networks and activities.

Parenting education has been given an increasingly important role in government policies to address social exclusion. This paper examines the basis for investing in parenting programmes and reviews the various different types of parenting education provision. It discusses the evidence on the effectiveness of multi-component and group parenting programmes in modifying parent–child relationships and the outcomes for children and young people. The paper concludes that while such programmes appear to produce beneficial outcomes, it is important that they remain linked to a strategy that does not individualise the causes of social exclusion.

The England and Wales 2001 Census was the first to include ‘Mixed’ categories which have now been adopted across government. The four ‘cultural background’ options were highly prescriptive, specifying combinations of groups. This paper assesses how satisfactorily these analytical categories captured self-ascribed cultural affiliation based on the criteria of validity, reliability and utility of the data for public services. Finally, the paper asks whether we now need a census question on ethnic origin/ancestry in addition to – or instead of – ethnic group or whether multi-ticking or a focus on family origins might give more useful public policy data and better measure the population's ethnic diversity.

Addressing anti-social behaviour (ASB) has been a major policy priority of New Labour since it came to power in 1997. This is reflected in a series of legislative powers enabling a range of agencies to take legal action to tackle ASB (e.g. Crime and Disorder Act 1998; Police Reform Act 2002; Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003; Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005) and in a number of national policy initiatives (e.g. the Home Office ‘Together’ Campaign, 2003; the Respect Action Plan, 2006; the Youth Task Force Action Plan, 2007). These developments are the subject of a growing body of academic analysis and critique, much of which has focused on the use of the ASB powers in the regulation of particular neighbourhoods and communities, especially social housing areas of predominantly White working-class residents (Burney, 2005; Flint, 2006), and of young people, again mostly White and working class (Squires and Stephen, 2005). Specific service or practice developments arising out of ASB policy have also been analysed, for example, Family Intervention Projects (Nixon et al., 2006, 2008), Anti-Social Behaviour Teams (Prior et al., 2006), and the use of ASBOs (Squires, 2006; Matthews et al., 2007) and Dispersal Orders (Crawford and Lister, 2007).

This paper suggests that current theoretical approaches to the contemporary governance of anti-social behaviour have certain limits which may be overcome by emphasis on its gendered dimensions. It argues that the paradoxical relationship that women have with the state may prove a fruitful starting point. Third way ideologies recognise and respond to the vulnerabilities of the ordinary citizen. The governance at a distance that they practice means that the responsibility for reassuring citizens falls disproportionately on women who have had a historical role in managing the anxieties provoked by proximity. Yet women's acknowledged vulnerability means that this is an incoherent strategy.

This paper explores the ways in which parents, who have been the recipients of Parenting Orders, perform identity work through their accounts of their experiences in court. Discourse analysis is used to identify five key ‘strategies of resistance’ through which parents manage their parental identity and argues that such discursive practices highlight the fragility of such parents' claims to a positive parental identity in light of hegemonic gendered and classed conceptions of ‘responsible parenting’. The paper concludes by reflecting on what such practices might mean for parents who find themselves at once both regulated and resistant.

This article focuses on the use of anti-social behavior powers in relation to a group of vulnerable women – street sex workers. It illustrates how the use of legal tools – anti-social behavior orders and public nuisance injunctions – against sex workers has been both misplaced and ineffective. The article also considers the use of anti-social powers in light of the government's leaning towards the coercive (or some might argue the compulsory) rehabilitation of sex workers. In doing so, it draws attention to the lack of research on the impact of both exclusion orders and rehabilitation orders for sex workers. Whilst it is important to fill this knowledge gap, it is argued that future investigations in this area would benefit from social network research approaches.

Social housing is at the intersection of two policy agendas, namely anti-social behaviour and community care. This means that tenants with mental ill-health might at once be defined as vulnerable and in need of support to enable them to live independently, but simultaneously their behaviour may be viewed as a threat to the safety of others serving to legitimatise disciplinary and punitive forms of intervention on the grounds of ‘difference’. This paper focuses on the role of housing professionals in the management of cases of ASB involving people with mental ill-health. It argues that housing practitioners are not adequately equipped to make judgements on the culpability of ‘perpetrators’ who have mental ill-health and ensure their response is appropriate. This raises questions about the training housing officers recieve, and more broadly, whether the competing policy aims of community care and ASB can be reconciled.

This article discusses recent research into engagement and partnership work between Muslim communities and police for the purposes of counter-terrorism. It is argued that asserting a notion of ‘shared values’ as a foundational criterion for choosing which individuals/groups to engage in countering terrorism is strategically flawed. Not only is the notion of ‘values’ overly diffuse and conceptually ill-defined, it is dangerous in its potential to construct even the most normative Muslim practices and beliefs as ‘anti-social’ and ‘extreme’. This is likely to further alienate Muslim communities in general and to exclude those groups with whom the State has so far successfully engaged to counter terrorism. The article further reflects upon engagement and partnership work between police and Muslim minorities perceived as ‘radical’, highlighting how the goal of terror crime prevention can be – and is – shared between police and communities, despite negative and stigmatizing impacts of the ‘War on Terror’.

This article examines the relationship between the characterisation of and response to anti-social behaviour issues in areas of high ethnic diversity and emerging ‘post-multicultural’ policies of integration, cohesion and citizenship. It draws on a small study of the views and perceptions of members of local community safety and anti-social behaviour teams in three areas of England with very ethnically diverse populations. The analysis distinguishes between responses to ASB issues within ‘settled’ minority communities, among young people from those communities and within the ‘new’ immigrant communities. While these responses vary, the article argues that each can be seen as supporting national policy goals of community cohesion and responsible citizenship based on the assertion of ‘shared values’.

Research into the application of the ASB powers to various ‘vulnerable’ sections of society is under-developed. This review article discusses recent published research concerning a number of different groups, highlights key emerging themes and identifies some of the research gaps.