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Three Month Review: Background and Methodology

Three Month Review: Background and Methodology

Background

  • On 22 June 2007, the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act (the Amendment) came into force, amending section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961. The purpose of the Amendment was "to make better provision for children to live in a state free from violence by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction".1
  • There are no criminal offences under the Amendment.
  • As outlined in the Justice and Electoral Select Committee Report, "the Amendment removes the defence of using “reasonable force” against a child for the purpose of correction and clarifies that reasonable force may be used for other purposes such as protecting a child from harm, providing normal daily care, and preventing the child doing harm to others".2
  • Following the Amendment, New Zealand Police (Police) agreed to undertake a three month review (23 June to 28 September 2007) of the impact of the Amendment on Police activity.
  • The purpose of the review was to enable Police to proactively respond to any issues, and to provide specific information on:
  1. Volumes of calls to Police about child assaults involving “smacking” and “minor acts of physical discipline” versus other child assaults.
  2. Nature of child assaults involving "smacking" and "minor acts of physical discipline" and whether they are "minor and inconsequential" or more serious.
  3. Practice issues, including processes for and volumes of notification to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) (Child, Youth and Family) or other social services.
  4. Usability of the Police Commissioner‘s Circular: 2007/03 - Crimes (substituted section 59) Amendment Act 2007 (Commissioner's Circular).
  5. Data collection issues for monitoring of the effects of the Amendment following the first two years of implementation, as required by section 7 (1) of the Amendment. MSD is leading this work with the support of Police and other government agencies.3

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Methodology 

  • The Police Family Violence Governance Group and MSD agreed in June 2007, that the following steps would be undertaken to inform the three month review process.
  1. Review of Police statistics to identify the volume of "smacking", "minor acts of physical discipline" and other assaults.4
  2. Review of prosecution files for any cases identified as being prosecuted.
  3. Consultation with Police Child Abuse Teams and Family Violence Co-ordinators to determine the impact of activity on Teams and Co-ordinator.
  4. Consultation with Police Districts and Areas to seek anecdotal feedback on practice issues and the usability of the Commissioner's Circular.

 

1 Justice and Electoral Select Committee, "Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill (271-2) and petition 2005/25 of Barry Thomas and 20,750 others," [2006], 2.

2 Justice and Electoral Select Committee, "Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill (271-2) and petition 2005/25 of Barry Thomas and 20,750 others," [2006], 2.

3 The Crimes (substituted section 59) Amendment Act 2007, section 7(1), provides that the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development will monitor and advise the Minister of Social Development and Employment, on the effects of this Act, including the extent to which this Act is achieving its purpose as set out in section four of this Act, and of any additional impacts.

4 An initial search of Police statistics was undertaken to identify seven key offence types during the six month period (three months prior to and three months post the Amendment). Following this, a manual search of every electronic Police file for these offences was undertaken to determine whether the child assault events involved "smacking", "minor acts of physical discipline" or other assaults. It should be noted that Police statistics are provisional and drawn from a dynamic operational database. Police statistics are subject to change as new offences are continually recorded. Provisional data cannot reliably be compared to official crime statistics.