Police have rewritten a policy that gave officers the power to "improve" research which showed "negative results" and then "veto" its publication for academics accessing crime data.
A copy of the police-drawn contract given to academics wanting to access the publicly owned data showed those who did not comply would be placed on a blacklist which could extend to shutting off access to an entire university.
But the new policy released this month has taken out all references to police vetoing or improving research and blacklisting academics, something that is applauded by criminologist Dr Jarrod Gilbert, an academic at the University of Canterbury.
The "massive problem" with the old policy came to light in 2015 during a clash between Police national headquarters and Dr Gilbert.
It came with a personal ban for Dr Gilbert - police told him he wasn't allowed to access data because of his "association with gangs". He is the author of the award-winning book Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand and lectures on the subject.