KEY POINTS:
Police have issued nine warnings to parents who have smacked their kids after attending 15 cases of reported smacking in three months.
The results are taken from a review, three months since the amendment to section 59 of the Crimes Act - also known as the anti-smacking bill.
The review was undertaken to see what effect the law change would have on the police workload.
From June 23 to September 28 there was no increase in the number of smacking events police attended.
Deputy Commissioner, Rob Pope said claims that the repeal of section 59 would lead to the prosecution of parents and the removal of children from their homes have been proven wrong.
"While this is only a three month snapshot I am confident that police are taking the same common sense approach to these events as we always have, with officers using their discretion to ensure the appropriate action is taken," Mr Pope said.
Police attended 111 child assault events, three of which involved smacking and 12 involved "minor acts of physical discipline" during the three month period, Mr Pope said.
The 15 cases were determined not to be in the public interest to prosecute and warnings were given out in nine cases.
Two cases were referred to family violence coordinators, four were referred to Child, Youth and Family, three were referred to inter-agency case management meetings and one was referred to Family Works for family support.
Seven of the cases were not referred to another agency and one case was referred to more than one agency.
Mr Pope said Police would continue to monitor the impact the amendment was having every six months.
The review report can be seen here:
http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/2007/section-59-activity-review/
