ABSTRACT
Criminal investigation is an information-processing activity that relies heavily on the decision-making abilities of investigators. Where investigations remain undetected or miscarriages of justice occur, it is often through flawed decision-making (see, for example, the Byford Report 1982, the Macpherson Report 1999, the Shipman Inquiry Third Report 2003, and Nicol et al. 2004). Failures of decision-making are not confined to major investigations or difficult cases. A study carried out in 1992 for the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice found that the most common type of error in crime investigation in general was that of decision-making (Irvine and Dunningham 1993: 37). Investigators are increasingly required to document their decision-making, for example, in decision logs and on applications to the surveillance commissioners under the Regulation of Investigatory Procedures Act 2000. While this makes it easier to hold investigators to account for what they do, there has been little research aimed at helping them to make better decisions (Barrett 2005: 47). This chapter examines the type of decisions that investigators have to make, the investigative process within which those decisions are made and then some of the key factors that are relevant to decision-making in criminal investigation.
