The survey was conducted by the Ministry of Justice to ascertain public attitudes towards the physical discipline of children. This information is to inform ongoing policy work on section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961. Section 59 provides a defence to parents charged with assault against their children. Under section 59, every parent of a child (and every person in the place of the parent of a child) is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.
Methodology
This study involved a stand alone, nation-wide, telephone survey of 1000 adults (18 years and over) that included proposed minimum samples of 100 Mäori and 100 Pacific peoples. The telephone survey was undertaken by a research company, the National Research Bureau Ltd, during June 2001. The results were analysed and written into the present report by the Ministry of Justice.
The survey questions were grouped into three different aspects of physical discipline, namely: type of punishment; physical severity of punishment; and the acceptability of physical punishment of children of different age groups. These questions sought to find out if the public viewed the physical discipline of children as acceptable at all and, if so, what they considered to be acceptable physical punishment for the purposes of correction.
The response rate to the survey was 59%. The results were further analysed using the following demographic variables; gender, ethnicity, age, parental status and socio-economic status. The demographic results that are reported are significant at the 95% confidence level unless otherwise stated as being significant at the 99% confidence level, which is represented by the p value (p<0.01) in a footnote. A significant result at the 95% confidence level means that we can say with 95% certainty that these results have not occurred by chance. Similarly, for the 99% confidence level we can say with 99% certainty that these results have not occurred by chance.
The margins of error at the 95% and 99% confidence levels associated with a result of 50% of the total survey sample agreeing with a particular statement are approximately ± 3.1% and ± 4.1% respectively.