Critiquing Evidence-Based Policing in Britain

Evidence Based Policing (EBP) exerts significant influence on how actors think,act and speak about UK policing to the point thatit is becoming institutionalised.Inspired by the insights of Michel Foucault intopower-knowledge, governmentality and institutional reform over time, this book provides acomprehensive account of the emergence of EBP in Britain as well asoriginal discourse analysis and analytical research into the texts produced by EBP. It presentsa new history of EBP presented around EBP's story-lines, subject positions and theinstitutional changes it has created. This history shows EBP shares a genealogicalheritage with modern discourses of managerialism and neoliberalism. EBP's roots aretraced and it is re-presented as an extension of the problematic relationship in theproduction of criminological knowledge and the British state. This history fundamentallychallenges the notion on which EBP rests: basing policing policy upon independent,robust knowledge. Instead this book argues EBP should be subject to greater illuminationand challenge, suggesting EBP is a contestable device that is doing political work. It speaks to those interested in policing, critical criminology and political science.