Life's difficulties come across every person's path. Some people have the internal strength to cope with them. Such people have a heightened instinct of self-preservation.
Another person with a reduced level of self-preservation cannot solve their problems and may accidentally die, becoming absent-minded and inattentive, or voluntarily take their own life. Common situation.
But there are stories where not everything is so simple: taking one’s own life can be provoked by another person. Such an act falls under article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation No. 110 “Incitement to suicide.”
We will look at the consequences of such an offense in this article.
What is considered incitement to suicide?
This act can be carried out in different ways. The most common of them are the following:
- humiliation, ridicule and even beatings committed in public;
- suggestion of suicidal thoughts through video and audio with elements of hypnosis;
- blackmail;
- impending threat to loved ones;
- bullying;
- inclination to suicide through games;
- publication of compromising evidence on a virtual network, transfer to authorities, etc.
As you can see, you can push a person to commit suicide in different ways. Among them there are also those that can be almost impossible to prove in court proceedings. Therefore, some criminals resort to this method of “eliminating” a person. Statistics show that the largest number of people who are subjected to such provocations are teenagers. At this age, grown children have not yet had time to develop a stable psyche. Also included in the risk category are pensioners and business representatives.
Risk group
According to the observations of Almaty police, men 35-40 years old who have not found themselves in life most often commit suicide. They did not make a career, did not start their own families, or, on the contrary, got divorced, and the ex-spouses took their children with them. They constantly need money, so they cannot help their relatives financially. In the eyes of others, such men look like losers. Because of this, they develop depression.
Photo from the site cedhnl.org.mx
At risk are men who have not found themselves in life
By the way, contrary to the assumption of many Almaty residents that suicides in the metropolis are committed by visitors, this is not the case. 70% of suicides are local residents who have permanent registration.
“Our risk group also includes those who have crossed the 50-year mark,” states Colonel Nurkaev. “They take their own lives either because of constant conflicts with adult children, or because of monetary problems. Remember the tragedy five years ago, when an elderly woman doused herself with gasoline and set herself on fire in protest against a court decision to confiscate her house to pay off a debt to the bank? So, the apashka died in front of her daughters and the bailiffs, but no one was held accountable. Unfortunately, such stories of people killing themselves because of debts to banks or moneylenders are becoming more and more common every year.”
Often, old people are deliberately driven to the brink by ungrateful children who dream of quickly taking over their inheritance rights. They constantly reproach their weak parents with a piece of bread and even raise their hand to them. Unable to cope with tyrant children, their unfortunate parents either throw themselves under cars, or take drugs, or drown themselves. In the latter case, the emergency can easily be considered an accident by police reports, because there are no witnesses to drowning.
30% of suicide victims are women. As a rule, these are single ladies of Balzac's age who are not satisfied with their personal lives. Some of them are childless, and therefore condemned by society, others have children, but have the status of divorced or single mothers. Such singles are in dire need of male attention, care and love, as well as material assistance and psychological support from others, but do not receive all this. So they are in despair and kill themselves, not seeing the meaning in life.
As for suicidal teenagers, in the lion's share of cases the cause of their terrible act is a conflict with parents and peers, as well as an unstable psycho-emotional state associated with the physiological characteristics of a maturing body.
“Many believe that such teenagers are members of informal youth groups like the Goths, Indigos and Satanists. In fact, this is not the case, because in Almaty such subcultures are not widespread among the younger generation. But the fact that the minds of many teenagers have been taken over by harmful foreign sites that promote violence, cruelty and suicidal behavior is closer to the truth,” says Colonel Nurkaev.
It is interesting that each category of suicide has its own way of dying. So, men prefer to hang themselves and shoot themselves. Women are poisoned with drugs and thrown from heights. Young people open their veins and even burn themselves alive. Old people throw themselves under the wheels of passing vehicles, drown and poison themselves.
“The most persistent stereotype in our society is the belief that only disabled people and prostitutes are prone to suicide. They say they decide to do this because of their hopeless future, the disrespectful attitude of others and a bunch of complexes. In fact, this is a myth, a general misconception,” Colonel Nurkaev is convinced. – Many people with disabilities are strong in spirit: their stamina, endurance and patience can sometimes be the envy of any physically healthy person. Disabled people know very well the value of life and health, and therefore do not commit a terrible sin, except in isolated cases. Remember the guy in a wheelchair who blew himself up at home with a grenade? So, this was the only incident in recent years. What can we say about girls of easy virtue, who are already seasoned in life. They are used to relying only on themselves in everything and not being afraid of difficulties, so it is very difficult to drive them to the brink. Again, in rare cases. So it’s mostly ordinary citizens who are susceptible to suicide, but those with an unstable psyche, low self-esteem and a pessimistic attitude.”
The official website of the World Health Organization provides a list of countries where suicide rates are highest. These include China, Cuba, Lithuania, Mauritius, Russia and Sri Lanka.
Corpus delicti
As with any crime, the elements of incitement to suicide consist of:
- subject;
- object;
- subjective side;
- objective side.
In this case, the composition is material. The criminal law in the form of bringing the perpetrator to justice, whose sanity is not in doubt, comes into force when the crime is completed. And it is considered as such not only if the victim commits suicide, but also if he attempts it.
The object of the crime is human safety and life. Despite the statistics that provide for certain categories, the most common victims in this case can be different people.
A person who has reached the age of sixteen is the subject of a crime who faces the threat of this article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. When carrying out a criminal act, a person must be aware of its severity and socially dangerous nature.
The objective side may consist, for example, in threats, which can be different. Often these include the public dissemination of some data, for example, incriminating evidence or other information that a person would not want to disclose.
Another way is through cruel treatment that degrades dignity or causes physical and even mental suffering.
Help from the whole world
Our trouble is that we don’t know how, and sometimes we simply don’t want to notice the first alarm bells signaling an impending tragedy. As a result, we get corpses. But many suicides could have been saved if we had been more attentive and tactful to them.
“You see, some of them work for the public,” Gaziz Nurkaev shares his observations. “They either deliberately gather a crowd around them and publicly promise to commit suicide, or they take a long time to decide on a terrible act, attracting the attention of passers-by and rescuers. In both cases, they want to be stopped and helped to get out of a crisis situation. When they do not get what they want, then they choose the tactic of demonstrative pseudo-suicide, that is, they make repeated attempts to commit suicide. But at the same time, they do not carry out the intent to the end, for example, they cut the veins shallowly or, after taking a heavy dose of medicine, they immediately call their friends to urgently come. It turns out that they are blackmailing their loved ones. “Alas, sometimes their next attempt to attract increased attention from their relatives ends in an irreparable tragedy.”
The evil irony is that such “amateur kamikazes” do not realize the dangers of their games. For example, that after a second unsuccessful suicide attempt, they are required to be registered at a psychodispensary with all the ensuing consequences. And if at first they can undergo treatment on an outpatient basis, then only inpatiently, with the dubious stigma of a schizophrenic.
Therefore, in order to prevent the development of such a situation, we must respond to the depressed state of our friends. If we see that a person has been depressed for a long time, nothing interests him, he complains about some kind of injustice and, moreover, threatens to do something to himself, then we simply have to help him. You cannot ignore his behavior that has changed for the worse and hush up your suspicions. We need to let the poor fellow speak out and give him hope for the best. Ideally, take him to a crisis center or make an appointment with a psychotherapist. In the West, in such situations, people seek advice from a psychoanalyst or go to special rehabilitation centers for treatment. But since psychoanalysis has not really taken root in Kazakhstan, you can limit yourself to a psychologist. If only the relatives did not drag the poor fellow to psychics, fortune-tellers and traditional healers, who, for a certain amount of money, would remove damage, the evil eye from him, and cleanse his karma.
Of course, it is not always possible to predict an approaching storm: some suicides occur spontaneously, as they say, out of the blue. A person is in a good mood in the morning, he plans something for the next day, and after lunch he suddenly hangs himself in the basement. At the same time, his relatives did not notice any signs of depression in him, he behaved quite adequately, did not quarrel or swear with anyone. None of them can understand what prompted him to commit suicide at the last minute, what he was thinking about, leaving his children orphans and dooming his parents to shame. Answers to them can only be given by researchers and healers of human souls - psychologists. This means that in our country it is necessary to develop institutions of psychological assistance to the population and family values. You'll see, then the terrible suicide statistics will begin to decline.
Required evidence
A person guilty of committing a crime can be convicted even if the plan was not completed, that is, the victim survived. The main thing is to provide strong evidence of such a fact. Among the facts proving the crime are the following:
- witness's testimonies;
- correspondence with the guilty party;
- a note left before suicide;
- other facts.
Proving attempted suicide is extremely difficult. In addition, sometimes it loses its meaning because the punishment for such a crime is too lenient.
What responsibilities are provided?
The maximum sentence for the crime is from two to six years or forced labor for up to seven years. In addition, punishment may be provided in the form of a ban on holding any position for up to seven years.
Important! If the crime was committed by so-called “death groups” or other organizations prepared for it, then a more severe punishment is imposed for the act: a prison term of 8 to 15 years or restriction of freedom for up to 2 years. This punishment may be accompanied by a ban on certain activities for up to ten years.
The same second part of Article 110 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will be applied if the act is directed against a person under the age of majority, against a pregnant woman, 2 or more people, in a public format.
Punishment for promoting suicide
Today, suicide propaganda on social networks is acute.
The government has strengthened Roskomnadzor's control over certain Internet resources. Their action is aimed at blocking potentially dangerous sites and communities. Today, punishment is provided for illegal actions. For this purpose, the same article of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan is applied.
All efforts are aimed at increasing parents' attention to this issue. Psychologists and teachers should constantly work with children. Thanks to this, it will be possible to create optimal conditions so that irreparable harm is not caused to the psyche.
Propaganda of suicide is suppressed, these messages are automatically blocked on most social networks. If there is evidence of illegal actions, it is advisable to contact the police for help. A sufficient evidence base will significantly speed up the progress of the case.
This is interesting! Criminal law: repeat offender - who is this according to the law
Arbitrage practice
Unfortunately, judges often have to consider cases where Article 110 of the Criminal Code appears. Society does not have time to shudder from cases when it learns that the next suicide is a teenager who fell under the influence of the “death group” on VKontakte. Typical cases include the following:
- Driving a person of retirement age to suicide in order to obtain an inheritance or otherwise take possession of his savings. Many residents of Yekaterinburg remember the case when fraudsters fraudulently took away all the savings amounting to almost sixty thousand rubles from an old man, who was 91 years old at that time. The pensioner could not survive this shock and committed suicide.
- Pregnant women.
- Teenagers.
Finally
Very rarely, but rescuers and police still manage to save the lives of suicides. For example, on the night of August 7-8 this year, specialists from the Almaty Rescue Service rescued a 26-year-old girl who was trying to drown herself in Lake Sairan. On November 8, the crew of the Buran-111 road patrol police in the Auezovsky district persuaded a 22-year-old woman not to throw herself off a bridge installed at a traffic intersection.
September 10 is World Day Against Suicide. It is celebrated at the initiative of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and with the support of the World Health Organization.
Driving or inducing suicide
The Criminal Code distinguishes several forms of committing this crime. They are as follows:
- Drive to suicide.
- Declension.
- Assistance.
The main difference between adduction and inclination is that the first type can be carried out unconsciously for a long time. However, from the moment a sane individual decides to kill another person, this already qualifies as inclination.
With assistance, the criminal helps a person who has decided to “take his own life” to die. The form in this case can be different, for example, in the form of transferring weapons or hiding some data.
Thus, if a certain method of incitement to suicide is proven, then a more severe punishment may be applied to the offender. The legislation of countries in the post-Soviet space has its own peculiarities. For example, Ukraine applies more lenient punishment compared to Russia, and Kazakhstan cannot prosecute criminals for incitement to suicide at all, since liability in this country occurs only in the event of threats or cruel treatment.
