The neutron emission from the JET tokamak is investigated using an extensive set of diagnostics, permitting the instantaneous neutron yield, the radial profile of the neutron emission and neutron energy spectra to be studied. Apart from their importance as an immediate indication of plasma fusion performance, the customary use for neutron measurements is as a test of the internal consistency of the non-neutron diagnostic data, from which the expected neutron production can be predicted. However, because contours of equal neutron emissivity are not necessarily coincident with magnetic flux surfaces, a fully satisfactory numerical analysis requires the application of highly complex transport codes such as TRANSP. In this paper, a far simpler approach is adopted wherein the neutron emission spatial profiles are used to define the plasma geometry. A two-volume model is used, with a core volume that encompasses about 2/3 of the neutron emission and the peripheral volume the remainder. The overall approach provides an interpretation of the measured neutron data, for both deuterium and deuterium-tritium plasma discharges, that is as accurate as the basic non-nuclear plasma data warrant. The model includes the empirical assumption that particles, along with their energies and momenta, are transported macroscopically in accordance with classical conservation laws. This first-order estimate of cross-field transport (which, for deuterium-tritium plasmas, determines the d:t fuel concentration ratio in the plasma core), is fine-tuned to reproduce the experimental ion and electron temperature data. The success of this model demonstrates that the observed plasma rotation rates, temperatures and the resulting neutron emission can be broadly explained in terms of macroscopic transport.