The geometry of suicide law

Suicide is largely decriminalized in the contemporary world. But self-killers in the past were sometimes considered criminals and subject to posthumous trials, convictions, and penalties. In societies where suicide was defined as a crime by the state, some self-killers had their corpses defiled and mutilated and their assets confiscated. Others, though, received no state sanctions. In this paper, I apply Donald Black's theory of law and social control to explain variation in suicide law: When is suicide defined and treated as a crime? When is suicide law most severe? I focus on the three variable features of the social geometry of a suicide case -- the centralization of the state where the self-killing occurs, the self-killer's relationship to the state, and the self-killer's social status. My central findings are consistent with what Black's theory would predict. Suicide law is most likely and most severe when 1) a self-killing occurs in a highly centralized state, 2) a self-killer is directly subject to strong state authority, and 3) a self-killer has an inferior social status. To support my findings, I draw mostly from recent historical scholarship on suicide and its aftermath.