NCJ Number
227095
Date Published
2008
Length
128 pages
Annotation
This book brings together the findings of recent research on "suicide by cop" (SbC), in which a suspect perpetrates a scenario in which an officer feels compelled to shoot him/her, with attention to definitions, case studies, the backgrounds of individuals who initiate SbC, and the aftermath experience for the involved officers.
Abstract
Chapter 1 examines various definitions of SbC, focusing on their strong and weak points, and concluding that a clear definition has yet to achieve consensus for the purposes of classifying the police shooting of a suspect as a homicide or a suicide. The classification has implications for national death-rate data, crime statistics, and legal issues. Chapter 2 reviews current research on SbC and notes gaps in the research. Chapter 3 presents a comprehensive collection of actual cases of SbC, analyses of police situations in which it occurred, descriptions of the instigator’s background, and his/her motivation to engage the police in the suicide attempt. Chapter 4 presents ideas for the development of a typology for SbC. This effort focuses on the integration of concepts that can aid in classifying SbC as a separate and distinct phenomenon. Chapter 5 discusses the psychological aftermath of SbC shootings. Exposure to a SbC incident may cause officers to have severe posttraumatic stress disorder. Officers may feel guilt and/or anger at being used and manipulated by the perpetrator. Chapter 7 concludes the book with a summary discussion of definitional issues, an approach for unifying the report mechanism for SbC, and a theoretical model for SbC developed by James Drylie (2006), which is called “victim scripted theory.” Chapter references and a subject index