Three Month Review: Resolution Outcomes
Three Month Review: Resolution Outcomes
- The majority of the assault events involving "smacking" or "minor acts of physical discipline" resulted in no further Police action or a warning of some sort. Three events resulted in no further Police action, seven events resulted in a warning from Police against the use of "physical force to discipline" their children, and two events resulted in a warning and a specific reminder about the Amendment.
- In three child assault events, the resolution outcome is not specified on the electronic Police file. We assume that these events resulted in no further Police action or a warning. This is because the electronic Police file indicates that the three events were either filed or inactivated, as opposed to assigned to Police prosecutions or a Child Abuse Team for investigation and/or prosecution. Police are looking into this matter, and will continue to monitor this over the next six to 12 months. This information is provided in Table 3.
| Events | No further action | Warning | Warning and reminder about Amendment | Resolution not specified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Smacking" | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| "Minor act of physical discipline" | 2 | 6 | 1 | 3 |
Commissioner's Circular
- All 12 Police Districts were surveyed to seek anecdotal feedback on practice issues and the usability of the Commissioner's Circular. The overwhelming feedback from the field is that the Commissioner's Circular represents a “commonsense approach” and has been helpful for Police attending and/or investigating child abuse events.
- Whilst all 12 Police Districts commented that no changes should be made to the Commissioner's Circular, Police are looking into the practices of electronic recording of child assault events and referrals of child assault events to relevant agencies. Police will also continue to monitor these areas over the next six to 12 months to ensure that Police are able to proactively respond to any practice issues that may arise.
Data issues for monitoring effects of the Amendment
- Police are confident that reviewing Police statistics followed up with specific electronic file searches is the best available method for gathering data for the MSD-led work on monitoring the effects of the Amendment following the first two years of implementation. It should be noted that this is an extremely time and resource intensive process. It involves an extensive manual search of individual files to identify "smacking" and "minor acts of physical discipline" events.
- Police are planning to carry out another statistics and specific electronic file search on a six monthly basis. This will serve as an appropriate management tool for the two-year monitor and enable Police to proactively respond to any issues that may arise.
- Police and MSD have agreed that Police will use the same methodology in the two year review that was used in this three month review.
Rob Pope Deputy Commissioner, Operations New Zealand Police