The Whole Truth

Can you figure this out

   Tue, February 12, 2008 - 2:09 PM
I've been in a odd mood lately and while talking to a friend I thought this weird thought. You know how they have the suicide hotline. Why was it originally started, was it because suicide was like this huge problem or because they wanted to stop people from committing it because suicide is a crime or both like they spend money on law enforcement to stop other crime, but since you would never really 'catch' someone in the act of the crime if you were a cop they started this hotline...

Is this the only crime in america for which there is a help line to keep you from preventing it? If they started a truely anonymous hotline for other crimes would there be less. Like if you could call someone and be like 'hey I think I might murder my wife' can you help? Maybe it's not realistic, but I thought it was pretty funny. In a psychotic sort of way.



3 Comments

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Tue, February 12, 2008 - 2:18 PM
I think it's more about the fact that suicide as a "crime" has always been sketchy and, really isn't illegal anymore. While it's considered a "victimless crime" except of course for the one involved it therefore is considered a benefit to save the one in danger.

From Wikipedia:
"In the United States, suicide has never been punished as a crime nor penalized by property forfeiture or ignominious burial.[citation needed] Historically, various states listed the act as a felony, but all were reluctant to enforce it. By 1963, six states still considered attempted suicide a crime (North and South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey, Nevada, and Oklahoma that repealed its law in 1976). By the early 1990s only two US states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that classification. In some U.S. states, suicide is still considered an unwritten "common law crime," that is, a crime based on the law of old England as stated in Blackstone's Commentaries."
Mon, February 18, 2008 - 8:22 AM
Never
It was nor is it any crime. Studied Death and Dying Pysc. And no law against it.
Tue, February 19, 2008 - 12:55 AM
After thinking about this, the hotline was probably started by someone who lost a loved one, and wanted to prevent others from doing the same. Much like the different missing children agencies or MADD.