The Causes of Suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the most common method of killing in the United States, as it exceeds homicide . Seventy-nine percent or 39,255 of suicides were male in 2022. Only a little over 20% of suicides are  committed by women. In 2022, 49,449 people killed themselves. Of  these suicides, only   3,825 suicides were black. Since the Afro-American population is thirteen percent, it s evident that blacks are a good deal less inclined to suicide than whites. 

Emile Durkheim’s study of suicides found that Protestants are more often suicidal than Catholics, and Jews have the lowest rate of suicide.

Because Catholicism is far more organized than Protestant Christianity with its numerous denominations, Catholics are more secure in their relationship to their religious community than is true of Protestants. Therefore Catholics exhibit a lower suicide rate than Protestants. Jews in Durkheim’s study had a far lower suicide rate that Christians because the Jewish community in Europe was so pressured and isolated that Jews were far more integrated into the group than was true of Christians. Hence the lower Jewish suicide rate.

Suicide is also related to altruism, best illustrated by the kamikaze pilots of the Japanese Air Force, who deliberately dove their planes into American ships knowing that they would die for the Emperor and the Japanese nation. There is also egoistic suicide. This consists of killing oneself on the grounds of rejection by a lover or ejection by a group who at one time allowed the suicide to be a member. Shunning is a good example. Finally there is anomic suicide, as in the case of depression arising from disorganization of the entire community leading to a loss of belonging.

Prisoners often commit suicide because of the horrible pressure placed on inmates. There are also the “suicides by cop.” These are people who kill others in the expectation of being killed by the police, an outcome the killers seek.

Old people kill themselves because they have lost their work environment and are despised by the community because of their age.

Shalom u'vracha.

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