Methodology

The methodology used by the author is outlined in this chapter. It explains how data from the very earliest decades of policing in Aotearoa New Zealand was located using a variety of publicly available reporting (PAR) sources. This chapter also details a variety of official documentary sources used to provide data to supplement the PAR, and in some instances to check its reliability. To enable per capita comparisons of the data in later chapters, the author explains how official police and traffic officer strengths were determined and why a 75% baseline was applied to those strength numbers to ensure the focus of the analysis was on officers who faced lethal risks as opposed to those who – due to their duties or ranks – were unlikely to face such risks.