An inmate’s right to die: legal and ethical considerations in death row volunteering

There is a considerable body of literature about the death penalty across a variety of disciplines. However, a newer body of literature has emerged examining the phenomenon of elected executions, also known as death row volunteering. To date, 138 (nearly 11%) of the 1300 death row executions have come from volunteers. This issue has been particularly controversial due to a number of legal and ethical considerations that have been raised by the scholarly, legal, and public communities. Such issues include a capital defendant’s competency to volunteer; ethical and moral dilemmas for capital defense attorneys, the states, and medical and mental health professionals; whether death row volunteering equates to ‘state-assisted suicide’; and finally, how these considerations impact the public’s support for capital punishment. This paper reviews the existing literature pertaining to death row volunteering through the lenses of these various considerations. Recommendations for future research in this area are also offered.     

Ingestion of pointed objects in a complex suicide

A 51-year-old woman with a psychiatric history of depression and drug abuse was found hanged in her bedroom. The ligature was a scarf attached to the door handle. The autopsy findings suggested that two methods of suicide had been used one after the other. In the first stage, numerous nails, pins and needles were swallowed; in the second stage, the suicide was completed by hanging.     

Suicidal or Homicidal Sharp Force Injuries? A Review and Critical Analysis of the Heterogeneity in the Forensic Literature

The differential diagnosis between self-inflicted and nonself-inflicted, suicidal and homicidal, injuries is difficult or impossible in many cases and, above all, cannot be made on the basis of information obtained solely from the autopsy or the medicolegal clinical examination. The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on suicidal and homicidal sharp force injuries and identify the relevant parameters that may help differentiate between suicidal and homicidal deaths. To achieve this goal, a review of 595 potentially relevant articles was performed. After excluding the nonrelevant papers by screening the titles, all abstracts were reviewed, and articles meeting the inclusion criteria underwent a full-text review. The following parameters were compiled into a table: number of cases, localization of the injuries, and number of injuries. The data were statistically analyzed and compared with those available in the forensic literature. On the basis of the heterogeneity of data revealed by the present review, a simple and short checklist of the parameters that should be included when reporting suicides and homicides by sharp force has been proposed.     

自杀问题的国家立场

国家对自杀的态度经历了一个历史变迁，目前自杀行为属于法的评价空白领域。对于自杀行为应该如何定性，能否将其权利化，这涉及到个人的自我决定权、国家保护生命的义务、基本权利价值体系乃至道德伦理之间的关系。从国家的立场出发，不应将自杀界定为一种权利或者自由，也不属于个人的自我决定权的范畴。自杀有其社会成因和社会危害，国家应有所作为，努力防止自杀，履行自己对于生命权的保护义务。     

合并自杀的凶杀研究

合并自杀的凶杀发生率较低,但经常导致家庭成员伤亡,甚至导致家庭灭绝;同时其与许多病态、家庭暴力和严重社会破坏相关。通过回顾相关研究,本文首先简要介绍合并自杀的凶杀的概念演化及其发生率,然后重点介绍其犯罪学特征、类型及其与精神障碍关系,最后结合司法鉴定实践指出今后的研究方向。     

Governing the suicide bomber: reading terrorism studies as governmentality

This article engages with the suicide bomber as he or she appears in the terrorism studies literature. In contrast to sensationalised narratives of the suicide bomber as pathological or fanatical, terrorism studies has increasingly come to view suicide bombing as a rational phenomenon that follows an identifiable strategic logic. Following Foucault’s articulation of governmentality, I read this literature as a governmental practice that attempts to understand the latent rationality of suicide bombing so that the phenomenon may be effectively governed and managed. With this understanding, I look specifically at the terrorism studies accounts of female suicide bombers and argue that the concerns they articulate regarding the superior capacity of these women to go undetected, such as with the use of fake pregnancies as disguises, produces the female suicide bomber as a uniquely risky and ungovernable subject.     

The predictive validity of the Depression Hopelessness Suicide screening form for self-harm among prisoners

The Depression Hopelessness Suicide Screening Form (DHS) includes 12 ‘critical items’, which have not been validated for the prospective prediction of self-harm. We conducted a retrospective cohort study (N = 4196) to validate the ability of the DHS critical items to prospectively predict inmates with at least one incident of self-harm during the first six months of imprisonment. While the critical items were highly sensitive (89.5%) at predicting incidents of self-harm, 51.3% of the inmates endorsed at least one item. Five items reflecting more recent and specific risk factors reduced the referral rate to 17.7%, while maintaining high sensitivity (84.2%). While the DHS has high sensitivity to predict inmates at risk of self-harm, treating all items as equally critical results in excessive numbers of false positives that likely exceed the capacity of prison resources for professional assessment and intervention. Referral rules based on recency and specificity of risk factors are proposed.     

新就业形态中非典型雇佣关系影响因素及优化

在相关理论模型的基础上，通过对 10 个典型的 C2C 互联网企业的深入调研及访谈构建了非典型 雇佣关系影响因素模型，并进行了实证检验。研究发现，宏观政策、宏观经济、平台企业、劳动者、消费者等 多个层面因素都对非典型雇佣关系有显著作用效果。在此基础上，本文还提出了非典型雇佣关系优化的调解机制、 制度安排和政策选择。     

The Lethality of Female Suicide Bombers

Over the past 50 years, suicide bombings have become an increasingly common tactic of politically motivated violence, and a rising number of these attacks feature women perpetrators. Prior literature suggested that female-perpetrated suicide bombings occurring between 1985 through 2008 inflicted greater casualties, which may account in part for their increased use by terror groups. The current research project ascertains whether sex continues to predict the lethality of suicide bombing attacks perpetrated by terror groups over the decade leading up to 2016. The study utilizes secondary data sampled from the Global Terrorism Database (N?=?881) and the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (N?=?1,722). A negative binomial model regressing lethality against perpetrator and conflict covariates did not observe a statistically significant relationship between sex and lethality. Male and female suicide bombers demonstrated similar lethality in suicide bombing events between 2005 and 2016, although scatterplots suggest some aberration during the years 2009, 2010, and 2016. Pairwise comparisons of perpetrator sex by conflict observed some variation in the lethality of attacks, with female suicide bombers from Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq, and Iraqi rebel groups found more lethal than male suicide bombers from Boko Haram and the Nigerian rebels. The current research project contributes to the literature by demonstrating the evolving nature of terrorism and tactics relevant to the lethality of politically motivated violent attacks.     

Characteristics of young suicides by violent methods in rural China

Suicide is one of the most common public health problems in the world. Information on 392 completed suicides aged 15-34 years were consecutively collected from 16 counties in three provinces of China. Information on each suicide was obtained from two informants. The results showed ingesting pesticides or other poisons (73.5%) and hanging (10.5%) were the two most common methods of suicide. Suicides happened more in autumn (30.10%) or summer (27.29%), nighttime (68.3%), and at home (73.6%). However, suicides with violent methods were more common in winter and spring and outside of home. Season (autumn or summer), place (at home), and pesticide stored in home were negatively while depression was positively associated with violent methods of suicide. Characteristics of the suicides by violent methods are different from those by nonviolent methods. Investigations into the methods of rural young suicides are necessary for suicide prevention in China.