More than Law and Order

Immediately after the Second World War, the New Zealand Police were in a sorry state: short on resources, antiquated in their systems and with too many elderly and infirm staff. The period covered by this book saw major change and modernisation. The author explores the ways in which the police have overhauled their management structure repeatedly since the 1940s and shows how they have often struggled to position themselves within the modern public sector. These issues lift the history into the wider context of government and management in the second half of the twentieth century.

There is much of interest to the general reader here – the 1951 waterfront lockout, the Crewe murders, the police view of the Springbok Tour in 1981, the growing role of women in the force, the development of forensic sciences and communications systems, the emergence of specialist squads, the role of police in Search and Rescue – and the book often sheds new light on recent history.