Lethal Risks and New Zealand Police / Nga Pirihimana o Aotearoa

This book examines the lethal risks faced by police and traffic officers in Aotearoa New Zealand. It tracks lethal risk volume and type across 134 years of the New Zealand Police/Ngā Pirihimana o Aotearoa’s 137-year existence. Using data gathered from public records, official government reporting, and comparative studies, it reveals the current situation with regards to lethal risks from 1886 to 2019. The book identifies and presents two lethal risk hierarchies, the first for the period 1886-1999 and the second for the period 2000-2019. The hierarchies establish that the lethal risks faced come from:

• Firearms

• Assaults

• And, potentially, Cutting/Stabbing attacks

It determines that the nature of lethal risk has not changed, but rather the volume has reduced, meaning today’s officers are less likely to be harmed by lethal risk encounters than their predecessors were.

This volume is an ideal starting point for researchers and practitioners interested in developing further scholarly research on lethal force and lethal risks faced by law enforcement officers and the organization they belong to.