Defensible decision-making is defined by Professor Hazel Kemshall in a report, ‘strengthening multi agency public protection arrangements’. It is imperative that practitioners make defensible decisions in all cases. This is a cut and paste from her report (available on line) but it does not just apply to managing offenders, it applies to all matters in terms of working with family, investigating crime etc. So defensible decision making includes (with a couple of additions that i have made to the list):-

ensure decisions are grounded in evidence;
use reliable risk assessment tools;
collect, verify and thoroughly evaluate information;
record and account for decision-making;
communicate with relevant others and seek relevant information you do not have;
work within agency policies and procedures;
use your Professional judgment
Hear the voice of the child
match risk management interventions to risk factors;

This will ensure that decisions can be evidenced, and defended, if necessary, and can demonstrate that at that moment in time with the information available at the time i have these options available and this option was taken because…………………………