Practitioner perspectives of the utility of the national decision model in relation to criminal investigations and response policing

This researched explored the under-researched area of how the National Decision Model (NDM) is utilised, focusing on how professionals (n=15) from one Police Service in England and Wales applied the model while responding to incidents and during criminal investigations. The NDM was introduced in 2012 for police officers to apply to all decisions, regardless of location, rank, or situation. While the ethical principles of the NDM have been explored in research (Adams, 2014; Lax, 2014), its practical application for decisions has not been evaluated. This research provides an exploratory study intended to fill this gap in knowledge. Based on a review of literature, four research questions were identified: (1) What are practitioner perceptions of the NDM? (2) Are practitioners using the NDM intuitively or consciously? (3) How does practitioner utilisation of the NDM vary between different levels of the Professionalising Investigations Programme (PIP)? (4) How does practitioner utilisation of the NDM vary between investigations and response? Naturalistic Decision-Making was used as a theoretical framework, exploring the use of the Recognition Primed Decision Model (RPDM) in police decision-making. Qualitative data was gathered through semi-structured interviews and thematically analysed using the software platform, NVivo. The findings identified three themes: Intuitive Thinking versus Conscious Thinking, An Effective Model, and Investigation versus Response. This research concluded with recommendations for the College of Policing, the participating Police Service, and further research, in the hopes of creating a foundation for Evidence-Based Practice. This research was limited by its small sample size and the effects of COVID-19 restrictions impeding access to participants. There was difficulty in obtaining an equal number of participants from each PIP level due to fewer more experienced officers and due to officers being redeployed in different departments due to COVID-19.