ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical analysis of the history of the police in Aotearoa. Over two centuries of colonialism, dispossession, and racist class war, the New Zealand Police have served as the enforcers of the capitalist class. Using a Marxist methodology, this chapter tracks the relationship between prevailing methods of policing and the imperatives of capitalism in Aotearoa. The chapter follows the development of the Armed Constabulary Force of the Land Wars into the nominally diverse modern New Zealand Police showing that the racism and class violence have remained uninterrupted and arguing that these are the core purposes of the police as an institution.
