YOUTH/JUVENILE SUICIDE - Research Paper Example

Suicide has accounted for 15% of the total deaths for youths in the world (While, 2012). In the United States of America alone youth suicide has been actually increasing, despite the youth counseling and relevant policies that have been put in place (Austin, 2000). Suicide is gradually emerging as one of the leading causes of teenage and young adults’ death in the nation and across the entire world. This paper shall review the various legal and policy issues that surround suicide in the US and other nations.

It shall also provide an overview of a number of researches carried out on youth suicide and, the findings of such investigations. Finally, the future forecast of youth suicide shall be discussed before making a plausible conclusion. Following the rising cases of youth suicide, the responsible organizations, as well as, governments have moved swiftly to make far-reaching policies that govern various areas related to suicide attempts and preventions. These areas of policy concentrations include Education, health Care and Firearm regulation.

Youth education has been given the first priority in formulating the suicide policies. The government has enacted policies demanding that the youths be educated on the topic of suicide and the schools take full responsibility in student suicide prevention. Section 10-221, sub-section (e) of the US Law indicates that each local and regional board of education must adopt a written policy for dealing with student suicide attempts and prevention. According to this section of the law, each Education Board is required to establish students’ assistance programs that shall identify the risk factors for the suicide cases.

Following this rule, various schools in the US have come up with suicide policies that govern their students (Eggert, 1994). Health Care is another major area that the government has tried to focus its policies on, in an