Policing has become dominated by an unhelpful rigid singularity in how it thinks about its professional practice. It has become obsessed with a particularly nuanced (positivist) interpretation of science, marketed as evidence based policing (Cassells, 2017; Fielding & Holdaway, 2021). Whilst any rationally informed reflexivity to boost police decision making is always a good thing, focusing on just one thing at the expense of others, like any systemic bias, becomes counterproductive. In particular, EBP has undermined the importance of experiential learning and street craft policing experience.
As a publicly funded service, policing must ensure it is transparent in its workings, to ensure it makes the best choices in the best way to retain its legitimate accountability. The social scientific enablers for policing must be operationally relevant for everyday practice as science must serve policing, not the other way around. A key principle here is to enable and value autonomous professional situational judgement making as a core skill, which requires information literacy and critical and lateral thinking capabilities, brought together within practical experience (praxis).
Research, knowledge and investigation
Policing has a good starting point when it comes to making sense of things (even when they are complex and dynamic) as its investigative mindset is built around the National Decision Making model (NDM). Whilst EBP is dominated by a linear rigidity in its method in the pursuance of its notions of efficacy, the NDM itself is a dynamic framework that is flexible for tactical and strategic decision making and for pursuing new knowledge.
The NDM, although an investigate framework, is very similar to the research cycle, and that is understandable as both investigation and research are both forms of enquiry. As a framework it does not dictate any singularity of information or data type, which is helpful as it can be applied in any context. It is also forward looking, rather than being regressive, meaning it drives continual improvement as a form of iterative, reflexive, action learning.
NDM as Bayesian science
The reason the NDM is so useful for policing, whether in the Board Room or on the street, is that it is based on solid scientific principles – specifically Bayes. This contrasts with EBP which is experimental rather than exploratory; Bayesian approaches have the benefit of being dynamic rather than being linear and that means they are more naturally aligned to being inductive rather than just deductive.
Ironically, the NDM more captures the thinking style of criminal enterprise, contrasting clunky ‘what works’ policing doctrine against the energetic ‘what if’ pursuance ethos of creative ingenuity. Policing thinking frameworks need to be match fit for the realities of the profession – overly conceptual approaches are of little use in dynamic complexity.
Policing as a dynamic profession
As policing is complex and dynamic. most of the hands-on warranted personnel work is done by constables and sergeants and police staff equivalents. As a pragmatic street craft (Innes, 2012) policing needs working tools for ‘there and then’, as practitioner situational judgement making is no armchair hobby . Hence, in the often fractious operating theatre of policing, practitioners need practical skills to help them navigate often tricky situations and do the best they can with often limited information and resource.
Policing does indeed need to grow its capacity and capability in research, to find new things out quicker and a more pragmatic way of doing just that is advocated by Professor Ken Pease of University College, London (2021). In short, it is the NDM, because the NDM is Bayesian: which means it derives from Thomas Bayes’s work on the science of probabilities, informed by intention and observation.
A practical, yet scientific, way
It’s perhaps unsurprising that this is the approach used extensively by the military in what they do. It’s credible science yet practical, because it acknowledges the imperfection of the information and data we have available to us at any one time. It also acknowledges that decisions still have to be taken in the real world, because there are live risks and threats.
Policing needs more critical thinkers, as skilled future operators, both research literate, and open minded, able to perform productively in their decision-making contexts. The framework answer is one that has been around for a long time but has just not been valued or used widely enough as a navigation tool. For decision making, the NDM is the practical science policing needs even though it has forgotten to use it enough: this should be the dynamic fulcrum to accelerate future policing, unhindered by overly conceptual and rigid processes.
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