Should adult Bullying be a criminal offence when it causes someone to take their own life? (Based on a an irl petition) (TW)

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

Imo, ABSOLUTELY.

Prison time should be given to people like this.

Here's a link to the petition:
https://www.change.org/p/debbie-s-law-make-causing-mental-distress-leading-to-suicide-a-criminal-offence?recruiter=1378678293&recruited_by_id=7b61f5d0-63c5-11f0-87db-479adfa32a59&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=starter_onboarding_share_personal&utm_medium=copylink

Please be mindful in your replies 🙏.

I'm surprised at the comments on this post you know!

I thought that people would be for it

I rhink that we can know exactly the reasons someone kills themselves. Suicide isnt just the result of long term mental illness. It can be the result of someone seeing that they have no way out of a shit situation

The situation can be one of many things. But it can be that the person has been bullied so severely, that they feel that life is no longer worth living. That they no longer have anything to offer those around them due to being treated like garbage.

I think the really harmful thing is when someone dies as the result of bullying, and everyone says 'oh they were obviously ill anyway'. That is truly awful.

Some people can cope with bullying and carry on living. In the same way that people can cope with physical and secual abuse and carry on living.

And some kill themselves. This doesn't make them unreliable or unworthy of being believed

No but coping skills and education regarding social media and the types of people we may encounter there etc should be encouraged.

I know a lady who lost her teen son to suicide. He was under CAMHS and also being bullied in school. The bullying was reported and nothing was done. His mum does not blame his bullies, but she blames the school for doing for fuck all.
It was reported time and time again, and everyone knows how useless CAMHS can be.
If the bullying was addressed, and CAMHS did more than get him to fill in questionnaires and be put on a waiting list so long, he was going to age out of services anyway, he would still be here.

The real issue here is that bullying/neighbour issues etc is not taken seriously enough. It should never get so bad to the point that someone feels that suicide is the only way out. Reports should be followed up and taken seriously.

And maybe teaching kids to not bully.

Of course but someone's bulling is another teasing is another joking around. We need to build self esteem of kids and teach them to log off.

Sorry, bullies know what theyre doing

Especially adult bullies, they know exactly the consequences of their actions and just don't care

How sad, i'm so sorry for her loss

I blame the bullies tbh, but its different with kids. The school are to blame as well.

Bullying is so ingrained in our society that its too hard to stamp out.

Imo, criminal punishments for adult bullies would go some way to help

That is the sad thing about how things are now with tech etc. Bullying can be 24/7. It carries on after school etc.
Build self esteem, but also teach kids how to recognise bullies, and teach kids not to do it to start with. There are better ways to get your kicks or feel popular.

I'm surprised at the comments on this post you know!
I thought that people would be for it
You thought people would be up for others to be imprisoned for others actions?

I know. I was relentlessly bullied in school and at work as an adult. We need to teach kids resilience and how to defend emotions against words of the ignorant. Self esteem and coping skills are key.

Why is suicide as a result of bullying 'others actions'?

As though the bully has no involvement in this?

I get what you mean, but if a kid then fails to build that resilience against hurtful words etc, it is not their fault either.

A couple of things

The petition you posted too seems to blame everyone except the bullies with its wording.

I maybe wrong but the person posting the petition seems to be asking for a legal duty of care from the people listed instead of prison sentences from bullies.

and
I blame the bullies tbh, but its different with kids. The school are to blame as well.

If you are going to blame the school, who have very little power to do anything about bullying, you should also blame the parents, after all they are the ones bringing these children up and often denying that their child is a bully.

It's not their fault but it doesn't have to end in tragedy. I was hard to bully because I had huge self esteem so was not affected by nonsense. People gave up and tried to befriend me because I was strong in myself. We can't let words have this much control. Imagine how many just on this forum would be imprisoned by now!

I think more robust policing of harassment is what is needed. I don’t think police take a lot of crime seriously including neighbour “disputes”, I think these things need nipped in the bud though.

I understand, but people are complicated. If you could invent a pill to boost self esteem, you would be a billionaire.

Yes so education to do this would be a great use of taxes. If only.

Well you're suggesting a dwp drone bw imprisoned for doing their job? A letting agent be imprisoned for expecting renters to pay rent?

Or someone imprisoned for dumping an ex.

I support it. We live in a culture that tends towards victim-blaming and the idea that might is right, even if people don't want to admit it, human history proves otherwise.

It can be the result of someone seeing that they have no way out of a shit situation

No. Feeling that they have no way out, not seeing.

You really are going to completely ignore the suicide prevention aspect, aren’t you OP? Can I suggest you do some reading about suicide prevention, how not to talk to vulnerable people about suicide, and about the contagion/copycat phenomenon in suicide.

Telling vulnerable people that they (or others) have no choice but to take their own lives is really, really not the way to go.

When you are talking about criminal charges, then the burden of proof in criminal matters is "beyond reasonable doubt", and I can not see how you can possibly prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone inflicted an act upon themselves due to the behaviour of others. There are so many other factors in play.

Coroners and inquiries can still, and do, rule that bullying is a factor in an unnatural death, but the difference is a coroner doesn't have to prove this to criminal standards, and it's merely an expression of opinion.

If anything, I believe there is a shortcoming in terms of enforcing already existent law with regard to harassment, especially so in the online world and social media where people hide behind the anonymity of the internet to behave in ways, and say things that they could/would never get away with in a face-to-face scenario. Most people are capable of compartmentalisation and filing it away as "idiots on the internet", but not everyone can, it's bound to take a toll eventually when it's persistent and unrelenting, and the fact most people brush it off doesn't mean the bullying and harassment is a-ok in the first place.

I'm normally totally against internet censorship and government over-reach in terms of dictating to ISP's what they should permit private individuals to view and post on the internet, but with message boards and certain SM sites it's clearly gone beyond anything reasonable, and they permit their users to behave in all sorts of ways that wouldn't be tolerated in-person. There are historical examples of users or groups of users behaving in a manner that would constitute a breach of law had they being doing so in person, the problem is though, how do you convince a site based in the US (for example) to put a stop to the behaviour/and or surrender the personal details of a user who might have broken some law in the UK? It's impossible, and they'll simply tell you to get bent because they aren't subject to UK law. And no, irrespective of the harm they may be causing, I want no part at all of the UK becoming a place where the government dictates to ISP's that certain otherwise perfectly legal sites are to be blocked outright because a small number of users can't behave. That's straightforward censorship, and completely at odds with freedom of expression.

So @NaeRolls someone completes suicide leaves a note say 'I had no choice after my interaction with naerolls today.
You don't even remember your interaction with this person at work, but you agree with this op and would pleas guilty and go to prison?

But direct causality is impossible to prove.

This is simplistic. Most people would of course plead not guilty. They'd have an attorney to argue their case, and the courts would use case law and statutory interpretation to make their rulings, together with all the evidence. (In South Africa we don't have juries).

The Act itself would probably take a long time to draft and become law. It would need to cover as many aspects of this offence, the criteria needed to make it an offence, etc.

It may not ever even be voted on or passed. But this is how a country's law is made. Law is always needing to be updated as society changes and new areas of life need to be regulated. It is not static. A statute can be repealed in future.

Every area of law starts with ideas like this, activism, discussion, debate, etc. I highly doubt any court would accept one mention of a person in a suicide note as enough evidence to convict. There would need to be lots more supporting evidence -- witnesses, phone records, etc.