Citation

Bychkova AM, Radnayeva EL. Russian journal of criminology 2018; 12(1): 101-115.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018)

DOI

10.17150/2500-4255.2018.12(1).101-115

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The development of online technologies gave rise to new ways of psychological influence on victims, for example, cyberbullicide -- suicide resulting from direct or indirect online aggression. This paper is devoted to another specific phenomenon -- users or their groups whose activities are aimed at driving other users to suicide through psychologically influencing them on social networking sites. The authors present statistical data on death and suicide rates in the Russian Federation, in Federal Districts and in a number of regions of the Russian Federation (including the age-adjusted death rate). They discuss regional specifics of suicidal activities of adults and minors; they also present information on the number of teenage suicides in the Buryat Republic and Irkutsk Region in 2015-2017. The authors explain the concepts of a "group of death" and "suicidal quest", describe methods of driving people to suicide by involving them in suicidal "games". The paper contains empirical data on the number of children that consulted psychologists and psychiatrists because of their involvement in "groups of death". The authors analyze the practice of prosecuting the so-called supervisors of "suicidal quests". They give a critical evaluation of the data presented by Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, according to which only 1 % of suicides was connected with the activities of "groups of death" in 2016. The authors believe it is urgent to introduce amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to counteract the activities aimed at driving children to suicide; however, the contents of Art. 110.2 should be transferred to Section IX of the Criminal Code of the RF ("Crimes against Public Safety and Public Order"). They conclude that the negative experience gained by the Russian Federation in counteracting "groups of death" needs a complex understanding from the standpoint of sociology, suicidology, pedagogics, psychology and legal disciplines. The adoption of substantive law norms makes it necessary to develop both criminological characteristics of driving people to suicide with the use of telecommunication technologies (including the Internet) and the criminalistic methodology of investigating this type of crime. © 2018, Baikal National University of Economics and Law. All rights reserved.

Language: ru

Keywords

Suicide; «Blue whale»; «Groups of death»; «Teenage suicide»; Incitement to suicide