Suicide attempts in Singapore are on the rise, although the number of people succeeding in their bid to officially call it a day is in fact decreasing.
This paradox is not funny, although it does mean that people in Singapore are actually becoming better at failing — in this case, failing to kill themselves successfully.
The statistics from the Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) revealed this finding.
In 2010, 966 people were arrested for attempting suicide, up from 842 people in 2009.
In the first half of 2011, 506 people were arrested making it highly probable that the numbers will overtake those in 2010. The full year’s numbers is still unknown for 2011 as it has not been compiled.
Just so you should know, in Singapore, attempting suicide is a crime. Those convicted could be jailed for up to one year and fined.
But not all are charged in court after their arrests.
Charges are considered and pressed if the attempt was a repeated try, for example.
Twelve people were charged in 2010 and nine in 2009.
This means these people had failed to kill themselves at least twice.
However, overall, suicide rates are down. There were 7.85 suicides for every 100,000 people in 2010, far lesser than the 9.35 suicides for every 100,000 in 2009.
This means that 353 people killed themselves in 2010, down from 401 did so in 2009.
But here’s the mega whooper.
The SOS hotline receives a whooping 112 calls on average every day.
This translates to over 40,000 calls to the suicide hotline every year.
Holy. Crap.
Talk about a depressing state of affairs.
Singaporeans are getting worse at killing themselves | New Nation