TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - The geometry of suicide law
JO  - International journal of law, crime and justice
A1  - Tucker, J.
SP  - 342
EP  - 365
VL  - 43
IS  - 3
N2  - Suicide is largely decriminalized in the contemporary world. But self-killers in the past were sometimes considered criminals and subject to posthumous trials, convictions, and penalties. In societies where suicide was defined as a crime by the state, some self-killers had their corpses defiled and mutilated and their assets confiscated. Others, though, received no state sanctions. In this paper, I apply Donald Black's theory of law and social control to explain variation in suicide law: When is suicide defined and treated as a crime? When is suicide law most severe? I focus on the three variable features of the social geometry of a suicide case -- the centralization of the state where the self-killing occurs, the self-killer's relationship to the state, and the self-killer's social status. My central findings are consistent with what Black's theory would predict. Suicide law is most likely and most severe when 1) a self-killing occurs in a highly centralized state, 2) a self-killer is directly subject to strong state authority, and 3) a self-killer has an inferior social status. To support my findings, I draw mostly from recent historical scholarship on suicide and its aftermath. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1756-0616
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2015.05.007
ID  - ref1
ER  -