SUICIDE AND THE American SOCIETY.
Among high school students in the United States, one of every three contemplates suicide, and three of every hundred-attempt suicide. Among college students, the suicide rate in U.S. is twice as high as the rate in England, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Suicide is the taking of one’s own life with one’s authority. Though suicide is not the major cause of death in the U.S., it does involve about 30,000 people yearly that are successful in their bid to destroy their lives. Because of the strong public concerned on the issue, various local, states and federal agencies are involved in the classifying the cause of death.
In the last 14 years, the suicide rate in the U.S. has been fairly constant, ranging from 11-13 per 100,000 people. During the global economic recessions, the rate is relatively higher than when the economy is doing well. E.g., during the farm crisis of the 1980s in the U.S., farm suicide was standing at 30 to 40% above non-farm suicide rate. The U.S. National center for Health Statistics reported that the highest suicide rate ever recorded for the U.S. was 17.4% in 1932, a depression year. The lowest suicide rate was 9.8% in 1857, a peak year for the U.S. economy. While the U.S. suicide rate is 12%, that of Hungary is 46%, Austria, 26%, Denmark and France 25%, Switzerland, 24%, Japan, 20%, Sweden and Germany, 19%, England, 8%, while Italy, 7%.
Some of the reasons for suicide in the U.S. could be attributed to social, economic and to a less extend political factors. People has always seen suicide as a way of ending persistent problems in their lives, by taking their own lives. The process of suicide starts when one is unable to cope with a problem or find a solution, he first feels that there is no solution to the problem, and them low esteem and blaming of one’s self for the situation, then suicide tendencies creeps in.
The consequence of suicide in the society cannot be quantified, whether such attempt is successful or not, families of the person who attempted suicide suffer emotional trauma and social discrimination among their forks, the person so involved withdraw from the public, there is quilt and self condemnation and the belief that he cannot make it again in life, on the part of the family members they are looked down upon as weak people who could not arrest a problem until it has taken a life, there by judging them as a group of failures.
Most countries have legislature on suicide and ways of addressing the problem, it is fast becoming a global problem, with high rate in the third world countries.