Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: Suicide Reporting; or, The System Doesn't Work

mark taslov

Wed, 22 Feb 2017 13:11:52 +1300

Police ‘default’ mental health service as attempted suicide call outs jump 30 per cent

A 30 per cent jump in the number of attempted suicides handled by police is an indictment on New Zealand’s mental health system, the police union says.

Police responded to just over 18,000 calls coded as…

mark taslov

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 14:55:50 +1300

Bernadine Oliver-Kerby: New Zealanders need to openly talk about suicide

Each year more than 500 New Zealanders take their own lives. Each year more than 2500 others attempt to take their own lives and fail.

But is it really us as a nation who have failed?

That would be classified. How…

Paul Campbell

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 06:22:28 +1200

here's a great example of a paper carefully stepping around the coroner

william blake

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 16:29:41 +1200

in reply to Ian Dalziel.

‘For me the issue is.’ means I own what I say.

Respect for the author is implicit as a considered response and the issue is put forward in Edglers opening paragraph.

“Back in January, Edward Livingstone shot and killed his son and daughter, before turning…

Moz

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:12:00 +1200

nice to believe that people doing horrific things hold belittling character flaws, but it’s not true. ... aka gutless arsehole.

I'd describe that as a character flaw, personally.

I think the underlying problem is a desire to believe that normal people don't commit crimes. Unfortunately we have very good evidence…

william blake

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 11:14:04 +1200

It’s always nice to believe that people doing horrific things hold belittling character flaws, but it’s not true.

There is nothing nice about infanticide.

The pathologies around this particular type of crime generally show narcissistic male entitlement with strong psycopathy aka gutless arsehole.

To ascribe this kind of behaviour to…

Sacha

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 07:03:46 +1200

.. and most mentally-ill people do not harm others. We get a distorted picture from media coverage, as the Mental Health Foundation's studies show.

TracyMac

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 01:13:31 +1200

It's not always a mental health issue, unless you classify all domestic violence or murders as arising from mental health issues. There might be an argument for that, but since our courts lock people up in prisons for murder more often then they commit them to mental health institutions, that's…

TracyMac

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 01:12:00 +1200

Exactly my thinking. Frankly, I think this case is a pretty bad example for leading a discussion of reporting suicide, since the matter was actually a murder followed by the guy removing himself from any legal recriminations (or not, see further below).

When it's a murder/suicide, I do think it…

Yamis

Sat, 21 Jun 2014 01:37:26 +1200

Here’s an example of an extremely complicated situation: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11260836

How do you report on this exactly? They probably did a pretty good job, and then at the end they have a million numbers for suicide to call. EVERYBODY (EVERY last person) at this boys school, including students knew how he…

tussock

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 23:29:37 +1200

just because the gutless arsehole

That's not how that works, by the way. It's always nice to believe that people doing horrific things hold belittling character flaws, but it's not true.

It's a mental health issue. They're not well, or at least they weren't for that last minute. Most suicides…

Angela Hart

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 21:11:42 +1200

I think it says a lot about our Government that we have laws which require processes which are concealed/unclear and which if one manages to find out how to proceed, persists and follows up even when the time frame has been such that the immediate impetus has been lost, can…

James Green

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 20:50:54 +1200

I'm putting this in a separate post, in case Russell or Graeme think it's better moderated.

One of the things that I dislike about the current regime is that there might be some questions that might be worthy of public discussion, that are less able to be discussed (or I…

James Green

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 20:39:38 +1200

In recent months, I’ve seen the Herald do something very interesting. When there’s a story involving a suicide they can’t mention, the article proceeds as per usual (“no suspicious circumstances”, etc), but at the end there’s a list called “Where to get help” with the contact numbers of various agencies…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:07:48 +1200

Really?
For me the issue is...
....but it's not about you.
I'm guessing (hoping) you missed Graeme's last paragraph:
I have opened the comments on this post. My preference is for any discussion to focus on the general issue. If you do feel compelled to comment directly on the death…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 18:50:14 +1200

for a 'reiny' day...
Sp if the law is widely flouted and never enforced, why is it even on the books?
It's the New Zealand way,
you know, like abortion, psychoactive drugs, alcohol,
– enact laws that don't go far enough or do what they need to do to make…

william blake

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 17:59:46 +1200

For me the issue is the man with a protection order had a gun and killed his children, and why should that information be embargoed just because the gutless arsehole turned the gun on himself.

Morgan Nichol

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 16:24:25 +1200

here's another.

I wondered if that would be one of the examples. I think about him every single day.

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:21:27 +1200

So if the law is widely flouted and never enforced, why is it even on the books?

Well, a lot has changed since 2006.

Idiot Savant

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:09:45 +1200

Sp if the law is widely flouted and never enforced, why is it even on the books?

James Green

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 14:57:11 +1200

And yes it may be questionable whether the creative minds at the advertising agencies can do anything other than make themselves more money, but I'd like to at least try.
Given the abject failures to use anything remotely evidence based with smoking, speeding, drink driving, drug and alcohol harm, I'd…

Joanna

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 14:51:03 +1200

I was really surprised to read actually here on Public Address how Charlotte Dawson had killed herself, and at the time I wondered if that was actually legal, so this post has cleared it up for me (given that it occurred overseas).

BenWilson

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 13:43:19 +1200

Aha! Cheers – you only quoted a small snippet of the subsection of the Act, I’d been presuming it was all of it. I finally see your problem, I think, why you went to all this trouble.

Most interesting that they can only release info if it’s not compromising of…

Bart Janssen

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 13:41:25 +1200

I’d be really really hard pressed to be confident of making any conclusions

As would I. The suicides are from multiple causes and much of the data is difficult to obtain. And yes it may be questionable whether the creative minds at the advertising agencies can do anything other than…

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 12:34:19 +1200

After the inquiry into the death is completed, it seems that s71 doesn’t apply any more because s71(c) no longer holds.

Section 71(1) applies before a coroner's finding is released.

Section 71(2) applies after a coroner's finding is released.

It would seem pretty odd if permission was needed in perpetuity.…

James Green

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 12:32:00 +1200

We report road deaths in great detail and that combined with the application of tremendous creative talents in the advertising industry has actually reduced our road toll.
It's very likely that the road toll has decreased for entirely different reasons. [[http://www.fearappeals.com/|The evidence for the advertising having much to do with…

BenWilson

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:54:21 +1200

The problem is that that guidance makes it look like you can’t even ask for permission until after the decision is made (ie it looks like the pre-decision ban is total).

OK. Whereas that's not what the law says in any detail? It says you have to have the coroner's…

BenWilson

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:47:16 +1200

Right. But do you really need permission to state more? After the inquiry into the death is completed, it seems that s71 doesn't apply any more because s71(c) no longer holds. Does the guide have the force of law behind it in that case? Which law?

It would seem pretty…

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:40:18 +1200

Check! That looks what what both the Act and the guide says.

The problem with the guidance is that it doesn’t even look like you need permission.

I meant to say, I think:

__The problem is that that guidance makes it look like you can’t even ask for permission until…

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:24:39 +1200

Pretty clear that you need permission to go further (although I can’t tell if even that is possible). Afterwards you can say it was a suicide without the coroner’s permission. That’s what I’m reading. You appear to need permission to say more than the very basic facts, though.

After a…

Robyn Gallagher

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:21:36 +1200

In recent months, I've seen the Herald do something very interesting. When there's a story involving a suicide they can't mention, the article proceeds as per usual ("no suspicious circumstances", etc), but at the end there's a list called "Where to get help" with the contact numbers of various agencies…

BenWilson

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:58:15 +1200

Now I'm even more confused.

I am confident you need permission to report the particulars of a self-inflicted death before the Coroner has made a decision.

Check! That looks what what both the Act and the guide says.

The problem with the guidance is that it doesn't even look like…

izogi

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:13:00 +1200

We report road deaths in great detail and that combined with the application of tremendous creative talents in the advertising industry has actually reduced our road toll.

Not to mention being a strong argument for increased funding for roads. I don’t want to politicise this aspect too much away from…

Raymond A Francis

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:06:15 +1200

Is it true that we can sheet this home to Jim Anderton
I know he had a personal interest in the subject and a google search shows that is a constant meme that he drove it, I just can't find the proof
Certainly as a policy it has not helped

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:01:28 +1200

But the Act trumps the guidance, doesn’t it? Newspapers have surely hit this hundreds of times, got their lawyers to look at the law, and then realized that it’s clear enough in the Act itself that the highly counter-intuitive idea that coroners have a perpetual right to deny freedom of…

Bart Janssen

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:48:32 +1200

I realise your post mostly highlights the insane complexity of dealing with the law as it stands and you've done a really good job of highlighting why the law needs to be refashioned so that it works as intended.

But behind this law is a real problem. **Last year more…

BenWilson

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:43:02 +1200

From that snippet it looks that way. But the Act trumps the guidance, doesn't it? Newspapers have surely hit this hundreds of times, got their lawyers to look at the law, and then realized that it's clear enough in the Act itself that the highly counter-intuitive idea that coroners have…

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:34:53 +1200

But reading the Act itself, I would think that chapter is contradicting the Act somewhat.

Yep. That was what I was trying to get at. You read the guidance, and it doesn't even look like you can get permission until after the finding has been made.

BenWilson

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:26:55 +1200

I’m confused by the same thing. To me the Act pretty much gives a precondition of the coroner’s permission being required, which is finished as soon as an “inquiry into the death has been completed”. It’s written as a backwards “if”, which is often confusing. It might have been clearer…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:06:01 +1200

Epic stuff.
...a truly Kafkaesque process!

Paul Campbell

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:44:13 +1200

(spelling nit: "Cheif Coroner")

I guess I'm confused reading section 71 quoted above, all those ands would imply to me that you can publish what you like AFTER the first (or only) inquiry has completed – can you explain how one (as a naive non-lawyer) should read that

After a…

andin

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:12:30 +1200

As a society, we fall upon the criminal law far too often as a ‘solution’ to a societal issue, without asking
When did suicide get criminalised. OH Yes that right, by the religious, centuries ago.
So when are we going to stop production and sit down and work through ways…

Public Address

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:12:30 +1200

Discussion from blog post.