Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Suicide

  • Chapter
Deviant Behavior

  • 172 Accesses

Abstract

Suicide is the intentional, that is, nonaccidental, killing of the self. Hence, suicide and criminal homicide are similar in that death is brought about intentionally, although in the one case the target of the violent act is the self and in the other another person. In some societies, such as Japan and India, suicide has traditionally been institutionalized. In most societies it tends to be individualistic deviance, as does homicide. Whether taking one’s own life is in fact deviance will, of course, depend on the context in which it occurs and whether it is in the line of culturally prescribed duty. The wife who throws herself on the funeral pyre of her husband because custom requires it is not acting in a deviant way. Neither is the soldier who, following orders, goes on a “suicide mission” and never returns.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. David Horton Smith and Linda Hackathorn, “Some Social and Psychological Factors Related to Suicide in Primitive Societies: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 12(4):195–211, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  2. U.S. Bureau of Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part I (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), p. 414.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Andrew F. Henry and James F. Short, Jr., Suicide and Homicide (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1954).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Jack P. Gibbs and Walter T. Martin, Status Integration and Suicide (Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Press, 1964).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Jack P. Gibbs and Walter T. Martin, Status Integration and Suicide (Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Press, 1964).

    Google Scholar 

  6. John L. McIntosh and Barbara L. Jewell, “Sex Difference Trends in Completed Suicides,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 16:16–27, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ronald Maris, “The Adolescent Suicide Problem,” Suicide and Life-Threatening behavior 15(2):91–109, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  8. R. H. Seiden and R. P. Freitas, “Shifting Patterns of Deadly Violence,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 10(4):195–209, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Evelyn M. Kitagawa and Philip M. Hauser, Differential Mortality in the United States: A Study in Socioeconomic Epidemiology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 77.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Dominigue I. Lambert, Linda B. Bourque, and Jess F. Kraus, “Occupational Status and Suicide,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 14(4):254–269, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Steven Stack, “Suicide: A Decade Review of the Sociological Literature,” Deviant Behavior 4:41–66, 1982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Elwin H. Powell, “Occupation, Status, and Suicide: Toward a Redefinition of Anomie,” American Sociological Review 23(2): 137, 1958.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Warren Breed, “Occupational Mobility and Suicide among White Males,” American Sociological Review 28(2): 179–188, 1963.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Henry and Short, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  15. Martin Gold, “Suicide, Homicide, and the Socialization of Aggression,” The American Journal of Sociology 63(6):651–661, 1958.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Ian Gregory, “Studies of Parental Deprivation in Psychiatric Patients,” American Journal of Psychiatry 115(5):432–442, 1958.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Theodore L. Dorpat, Joan K. Jackson, and Herbert S. Ripley, “Broken Homes and Attempted and Completed Suicide,” Archives of General Psychiatry 12(2):213–216, 1965.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. William A. Rushing, “Individual Behavior and Suicide,” in Suicide, ed. Jack P. Gibbs (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 100.

    Google Scholar 

  19. William A. Rushing, “Individual Behavior and Suicide,” in Suicide, ed. Jack P. Gibbs (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 100.

    Google Scholar 

  20. William A. Rushing, “Individual Behavior and Suicide,” in Suicide, ed. Jack P. Gibbs (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 100.

    Google Scholar 

  21. William A. Rushing, “Individual Behavior and Suicide,” in Suicide, ed. Jack P. Gibbs (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 101.

    Google Scholar 

  22. For example, Norman L. Farberow and Edwin S. Shneidman, eds. The Cry for Help (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 100.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Gerald F. Jacobson and Stephen H. Portuges, “Relation of Marital Separation and Divorce to Suicide: A Report,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 8(4):217–224, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Jack P. Gibbs, “Testing the Theory of Status Integration and Suicide Rates,” American Sociological Review 47(2):227–237, 1982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Edwin S. Shneidman and Norman L. Farberow, “Clues to Suicide,” Public Health Reports 71(1):111, 1959.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Rushing, op. cit., p. 98.

    Google Scholar 

  27. For example, Jack D. Douglas, The Social Meanings of Suicide (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 283–285, 339.

    Google Scholar 

  28. M. L. Farber, Theory of Suicide (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968).

    Google Scholar 

  29. David Lester, To Kill Themselves (Springfield, IL: Charles t. Thomas, 1972).

    Google Scholar 

  30. David Lester, To Kill Themselves (Springfield, IL: Charles t. Thomas, 1972).

    Google Scholar 

  31. Ronald W. Maris, Pathways to Suicide: A Survey of Self-Destructive Behaviors (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1981).

    Google Scholar 

  32. Lester, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  33. Karl A. Menninger, Man Against Himself (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1938).

    Google Scholar 

  34. Herbert Hendin, “The Psychodynamics of Suicide,” in Gibbs, Suicide, pp. 133-145.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Louis I. Dublin, Suicide (New York: Ronald Press, 1963).

    Google Scholar 

  36. Stuart Palmer, “Characteristics of Suicide in 54 Non-Literate Societies,” Life Threatening Behavior 1(3):178–183, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Dublin, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  38. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Palmer, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  40. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Fourth Special Report to the United States Congress on Alcohol and Health (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981).

    Google Scholar 

  41. J. Roizen, “Estimating Alcohol Involvement in Serious Events,” in National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Alcohol Consumption and Related Problems (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Marc Aarens, Tracy Cameron, Judy Roizen, Ron Roizen, Robin Room, Dan Scheneberk, and Deborah Wingard, Alcohol, Causalities and Crime (Berkeley: University of California, 1978).

    Google Scholar 

  43. C. P. Miles, “Conditions Predisposing to Suicide: A Review,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 164(4):231–246, 1977.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Fifth Special Report to the United States Congress on Alcohol and Health (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985).

    Google Scholar 

  45. William A. Rushing, “Suicide as a Possible Consequence of Alcoholism,” in Deviant Behavior and Social Process, ed. William A. Rushing (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969).

    Google Scholar 

  46. Herbert Hendin, Suicide in America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982).

    Google Scholar 

  47. Alex Pokorny, “Human Violence: A Comparison of Homicide, Aggravated Assault, Suicide, and Attempted Suicide,” Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 56(4):488–497, 1965.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Manfred Guttmacher, The Mind of the Murderer (New York: Grove Press, 1962).

    Google Scholar 

  49. Cited by Donald J. West, Homicide Followed by Suicide (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 70.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Donald J. West, Homicide Followed by Suicide (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Donald J. West, Homicide Followed by Suicide (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  52. West, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  53. Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), p. 273.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), p. 276.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), p. 277.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), p. 278.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), p. 278.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), p. 278.

    Google Scholar 

  59. West, op. cit., p. 46.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Emile Durkheim, Suicide, trans. John A. Spaulding and George Simpson (New York: Free Press, 1966).

    Google Scholar 

  61. Powell, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  62. Ibid., p. 139.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Gibbs and Martin, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  64. Jacqueline H. Straus and Murray A. Straus, “Suicide, Homicide, and Social Structure in Ceylon,” American Journal of Sociology 58(5):461–469, 1953.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Henry and Short, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  66. Ibid., p. 18.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1957), pp. 131–160.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Maurice Halwachs, Les Causes du Suicide (Paris: Alcon, 1930).

    Google Scholar 

  69. Ruth S. Cavan, Suicide (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928).

    Google Scholar 

  70. Calvin F. Schmid, “Suicide in Minneapolis, Minnesota: 1928–1932,” American Journal of Sociology 39(1):30–48, 1933.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Calvin F. Schmid, Suicides in Seattle, 1914 to 1925 (Seattle: University of Washington Publications in the Social Sciences, 1928).

    Google Scholar 

  72. Robert E. L. Faris, Social Disorganization (New York: Ronald Press, 1948), p. 293.

    Google Scholar 

  73. Joan K. Jackson and Ralph Connor, “The Skid Road Alcoholic,” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 14(3):468–486, 1953.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Breed, op. cit..

    Google Scholar 

  75. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Arthur Lewis Wood, “A Socio-Structural Analysis of Murder, Suicide and Economic Crime in Ceylon,” American Sociological Review 26:744–753, 1961.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Walter B. Miller, “Lower Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency,” Journal of Social Issues 14(3):5–19, 1958.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Richard Quinney, The Social Reality of Crime (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970).

    Google Scholar 

  79. Thio, Deviant Behavior (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983).

    Google Scholar 

  80. Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald R. Cressey, Criminology 10th ed. (Chicago: Lippincott, 1978).

    Google Scholar 

  81. Albert Cohen, Delinquent Boys (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1955).

    Google Scholar 

  82. Marvin E. Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti, The Subculture of Violence (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967).

    Google Scholar 

  83. See, however, John A. Humphrey and Stuart Palmer, “Homicide and Suicide in North Carolina: An Emerging Subculture of Self-Violence?” in Violent Crime: Historical and Contemporary Issues, eds. James A. Inciardi and Anne E. Pottieger (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1978), pp. 99–110.

    Google Scholar 

  84. For discussions of the societal reaction approach, see especially Thomas Scheff, Being Mentally III (Chicago: Aldine, 1966).

    Google Scholar 

  85. Edwin M. Lemert, Human Deviance, Social Problems and Social Control (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967).

    Google Scholar 

  86. Edwin M. Schur, Labeling Deviant Behavior (New York: Harper and Row, 1971).

    Google Scholar 

  87. Douglas, The Social Meanings of Suicide.

    Google Scholar 

  88. David P. Phillips, ps, “The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide: Substantive and Theoretical Implications of the Werther Effect,” American Sociological Review 39(3):340–354, 1974.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  89. Gibbs, op. cit., p. 17.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA

    Stuart Palmer

  2. University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

    John A. Humphrey

Authors
  1. Stuart Palmer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. John A. Humphrey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1990 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Palmer, S., Humphrey, J.A. (1990). Suicide. In: Deviant Behavior. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0583-3_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0583-3_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-43285-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-0583-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation