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This article aims to focus on deaths by suicide in relation to UK welfare reform as a case study to question one of suicidology’s most dominant theories – the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (Joiner, 2005) and its influential ideas on “perceived burdensomeness” – as well as wider ideologies on suicide and mental health reflected in this approach.

This article draws on evidence from disabled people’s campaigning groups (primary sources) and research literature (secondary sources), which shows the negative psychological impact of burden discourse and how this shows up in people’s accounts of feeling suicidal, in suicide notes and in family accounts of those who have died by suicide. It uses this evidence to problematise the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (Joiner, 2005), specifically its ideas about “burden” as an individual misperception, and the assumption that suicide is always the outcome of mental health problems.

The findings highlight the systemic, intersectional and cumulative production of suicidality by governmental “welfare reform” in the UK, through positioning welfare claimants as “burdens” on society. They show that by locating the problem of burdensomeness in individual “misperceptions”, the Interpersonal Theory allows the government’s role in crafting stigmatisation and conditions of suicidality to be overlooked and to be reproduced.

The article raises urgent ethical questions about the application of approaches, such as the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, to benefits-related suicides and calls for approaches to benefits-related harm and suicide to be rooted in social and disability justice.

The death of a person caused by suicide is a matter of grave concern in contemporary society. Today, a number of people in society are taking their own lives because of many reasons. This study aims to examine the causes of suicide in Indian society using anomie theory.

The author has applied the content analysis method. The researcher has collated 210 occurrences of suicide from newspapers of Uttar Pradesh between 1 October 2020 and 30 April 2021. The author has recognised the type, patterns and causes of suicide in society by analysing and observing daily news items.

The result demonstrates that most suicides (16.67%) have been caused by frustration/mental illness, followed by several other causes of suicide such as family problems (13.81%), love affairs (10.00%), poverty (9.05%), harassment (8.57%) and sexual harassment (7.62%). The data shows a major gap in the number of suicide deaths between the genders.

This is an original work of researcher which is basically based on anomie theory.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight suicide risk factors experienced by graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and then outline suicide prevention strategies for these populations.

Through analysis of literature and application of theory, the authors use the diathesis-stress model and Joiner’s (2005) interpersonal theory of suicidality to outline suicide prevention strategies specific to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

The authors’ review of the literature and application of theory suggest that both individuals and groups can engage in suicide prevention strategies, specifically pertaining to reducing stressors unique to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, as well as addressing feelings of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness that can lead to the development of suicidality within these populations.

Engaging in suicide prevention strategies can save lives and address the mental health conditions exhibited among graduate student and postdoctoral scholars.

The authors offer a synthesis of good practices addressing suicide risk factors and prevention with attention to the stress-diathesis model and Joiner’s (2005) interpersonal theory of suicidality toward reducing suicidality among graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

The phenomenon of murder-suicide (aka. homicide-suicide) makes a sizeable impact on current public perceptions and policies regarding mental illness and risk for violence. However, within the past 25 years, our understanding of murder-suicide has remained relatively stable, and so has our relative inability to reliably predict and prevent it. The purpose of this paper is to propose pathways for furthering a cogent understanding of murder-suicide that may inform specific predictive and preventative practices.

Research literature regarding empirical and theoretical positions in the fields of murder-suicide, homicide, and suicide are reviewed and discussed.

While murder-suicide has many similarities to both homicide and suicide, no current theories of either alone have been successful in fully incorporating the phenomenon of murder-suicide. Theories specific to murder-suicide as a unique form of violence are in need of further research.

Developing and empirically testing theories of murder-suicide may lead to a vast and needed improvement of our understanding, prediction, and prevention of these tragedies.

To empirically consider work and career as potential influences of suicide.

In this qualitative study we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 individuals who were survivors (i.e. family members or intimates) of individuals who had committed suicide. Data was analyzed using a grounded theory methodology.

This exploratory study used purposive self-determination as the theoretical framework for analyzing their life histories. Factors of purposive self-determination, including lack of purpose, feeling controlled, experiencing failure, and social exclusion all figured prominently but differentially according to life-stage. Distinct work and career themes for early-career, mid-career and late-career suicides emerged. Early-career suicides were attributed to educational or work-related contexts, leading to a sense of hopelessness. Mid-career suicides emphasized despair based in failure. Finally, an attempt to escape from challenges associated with transitioning roles in retirements emerged as a key theme in late-career suicides.

Although suicide has been studied extensively from medical, psychopathological, sociological, anthropological, philosophical and religious perspectives, there is a dearth of research considering why certain individuals choose to end their own lives as a result of work and career related reasons. This study sought to contribute to our understanding of this under-researched phenomenon. Additionally, while extant careers theory and research has considered positive notions of career such as career success or careers as a calling, this work presents an alternate lens, the consideration of career failure and careers as a sentence.

In this chapter, I apply theories of conflict and social control derived from the work of Donald Black to explain when suicide attacks will occur and who will carry them out.

Drawing on the published literature on suicide, suicide terrorism, and social control, I present a structural analysis of suicide attacks that specifies which configurations of social space and social time are most likely to produce them.

I propose that suicide attacks can be explained by structural patterns such as social distance, status inferiority, organization, and large movements of social time. Furthermore, sacrifice is greater among those who are socially marginal individuals whose locations are otherwise conducive to both partisanship and self-destruction.

I highlight structural similarities between suicide attacks and other forms of violence, social control, and suicide, thus contributing to the systemization of structural theories of human behavior and suggesting avenues for further study.

Purpose: The author seeks to identify how suicide-bereaved individuals conceptualize their relationships with deceased loved ones. The author engages Durkheim’s theory of suicide to provide a new framework to analyze this population.

Methodology: The author uses qualitative research and coding methods to produce a secondary analysis of previously collected interview transcripts.

Findings: The author concludes that participants experience the suicide of a loved one as a social event, conceptualizing it similarly to how Durkheim defined his four suicide types – characterized by too much or too little regulation and/or integration.

Research Limitations: As a result of the secondary analysis, a lack of demographic information remains the largest limitation, and the available demographic information indicates the participant population is not a diverse one. Therefore, the larger analysis is limited.

Practical and Social Implications: This work provides potential ways to improve current prevention and postvention practices for both the suicide-bereaved and those struggling with suicidality. Subsequently, it may help to improve the health outcomes of these groups.

Originality: To the author’s current knowledge, this is the first published use of Durkheim’s Suicide (1897/1966) as a framework to directly examine the suicide-bereaved population in this way. Thus, this work contributes to suicidology and sociology more broadly in two ways: by providing a new way to understand and ultimately help a vulnerable population and by providing a new use of a classic theory.

This paper aims to provide an overview of current suicide prevention across the UK criminal justice system (CJS). It considers shortcomings in current provision and how improvements could be made by drawing on international practice. Recommendations for practice going forward and suggestions for future research are made based on the literature.

This paper provides an overview of suicide prevention research to date. Relevant literature was identified through a basic journal article search, including terms such as “probation”, “criminal justice system”, “suicide”, “suicide prevention”, “UK” and “suicide theory”.

This paper highlights opportunities to improve practice based on the current evidence base, making several recommendations and suggestions for practice, including improving multi-agency cooperation through clearer distribution of responsibilities, simplifying data sharing and investing in trauma-focussed suicide training for staff.

This paper considers how research and psychological theory has informed suicide prevention practice in the UK. Limitations and challenges in applying theory to practice are explored, in the context of research with frontline staff who use such policies. This review proposes potential improvements to suicide prevention implementation to reduce suicide across the wider CJS.

This article represents an overview of the existing literature as well as possible future ideas for policy. It is therefore a piece that represents the viewpoint of all involved authors.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of law enforcement suicide research from 1997 to 2016.

The PRISMA systematic review methodology was implemented. A SCOPUS search identified a total of 97 documents. After applying all exclusion criteria, the results included a list of 44 articles in the review.

Overall, studies investigating law enforcement suicide rates show conflicting results, with some studies showing lower suicide rates among law enforcement, some showing higher rates, and some showing no difference to comparison populations. Recurring research themes were lack of an appropriate comparison group, and small statistical power, particularly for minority and female officers. Stressors related to suicide among police included lack of organizational support, traumatic events, shift work, stigma associated with asking for help, or problems associated with fitting in with the police culture. Problems associated with domestic relationships and alcohol use were commonly mentioned as precursors to suicide or as correlates of suicidal ideation and were hypothesized to arise from stressful working conditions.

Some limitations in law enforcement suicide research include the lack of theory, under-reporting of suicides, and guarded survey responses from police officers. Future directions in police suicide research include investigating etiological factors such as past adverse life and family experiences, social-ecological variation in suicide, or differences in suicide rates within the law enforcement occupation.

Police work, given chronic and traumatic stress, lack of support, danger, and close public scrutiny is a fertile occupation for increased suicide risk. Awareness of the scope of the problem and associated risk factors can help to initiate prevention programs.

This paper provides a long-term review of literature regarding police suicidality, with suggestions for research and prevention.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of aggregate suicides in 15 OECD countries during 1960-2010 using an economic model where changes in the welfare of consumers play the critical role for determining the number of suicides.

The hardship index based on economic theory is developed. In estimating the model, the authors apply the Pesaran et al. (2001) approach that allows the simultaneous estimation of the long-run and short-run parameters. To make sure that the authors’ findings are not specific to their method, the authors also use the generalized method of moments estimation in the panel set-up.

The authors found a relatively strong positive relationship between macroeconomic conditions, especially changes in aggregate consumption, and suicides. The relationship appears to be robust also in terms of the various control variables cited in the literature. The hardship index which is based on the habit persistence model of consumption predicts and explains the long-term behavior of suicides in most of the countries. Thus, the hardship index is a better economic explanatory variable than the unemployment rate or other proxies describing economic conditions.

Marrying the economic theory and econometric methods produces a reasonable empirical model to explain the connection between aggregate economic conditions and suicides.