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Suicide Terrorism

Decent Essays

Atran, Scott. 2003. "Genesis of Suicide Terrorism." American Association for the Advancement of Science 299 (5612): 1534-1539. Accessed March 18, 2015. http://www.jstor.org.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/stable/3833755.

This journal reviews a variety of literature which looks at the deviant act of suicide through terrorism. Suicide terrorism in contemporary society is perceived as “senseless” and “crazy” and in modern culture believed to be conducted by people who are uneducated and are of a low social status (Atran, 2003 p1534). The author finds that these common perceptions of these people are not true, with most of these people who conduct this deviant act having no psychopathological tendencies, as well as being well educated. Atran (2003) …show more content…

A cohort of prisoners within a 14-year period were observed to provide a deeper context into suicide related deaths after they have served time. Spittal et al. (2014) observed suicide rates within Queensland over the same time period and concluded that prisoners under 25, were more likely to commit suicide, after release, especially within the first 6 months. The authors also established that minority groups such as indigenous people were also overrepresented in their results with more than 19% of indigenous persons released committing suicide. This article, however found that marriage was a “protective factor” for their release, regardless of sex, age or indigenous significance, and concludes that social support is key in preventing suicide (Spittal et al.,2014, p.). Overall, this article is interesting as it draws links between persons who are perceived by society as deviant and their deviant act of suicide after there release as well as identifying factors that could reduce rates of suicide after there …show more content…

Suicide is clearly defined throughout the article, as ‘self-killing’ or ‘self-annihilation”, and is an act that has been mostly rejected by humanity due to its consequences (Yousuf, 2011, p237). Yousuf (2011) reviews that within modern society, suicide is seen as a weapon, used by terrorists’ organizations with their overall aim to not only kill people, but to push political disputes, religion and their ideologies. Yousuf (2011), concludes that there needs to be a nonviolent, peaceful solution to prevent theses attacks, and that countries should push to understand these people, and therefore identifying the issues and addressing them according. Overall this article concludes that terrorist suicide in contemporary society is seen as a “crime against humanity” which needs to be dealt with mutual understanding and respect, which therefore provides a different perspective into managing this issue. (Yousuf, 2011,

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