All I can say is: What a horrendously awful (or, rather, tendentiously-designed) study. Nothing makes a person a "jumping suicide" risk, in particular. If jumping is viable option, one might jump. If not, on will do something else. So they made it slightly more difficult for people to jump, and then declared victory because fewer people jumped. What about all the other possible was of committing suicide? Did they all stay exactly level as well? All that happened is a couple (and it is only a couple we are talking about here) of people might have jumped decided to take pills or shoot themselves instead.
Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== Beth Benoit wrote: > > > > Took me a while, but I finally found a NYTimes article that one of my > students quoted in her paper, about a similar finding concerning two > bridges in northwest Washington. Here's an excerpt from the story > about suicide, with the link to follow: > > *"In Northwest* Washington stands a pretty neoclassical-style bridge > named for one of the city’s most famous native sons, Duke Ellington > <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/duke_ellington/index.html?inline=nyt-per>. > > Running perpendicular to the Ellington, a stone’s throw away, is > another bridge, the Taft. Both span Rock Creek, and even though they > have virtually identical drops into the gorge below — about 125 feet — > it is the Ellington that has always been notorious as Washington’s > “suicide bridge.” By the 1980s, the four people who, on average, leapt > from its stone balustrades each year accounted for half of all jumping > suicides in the nation’s capital. The adjacent Taft, by contrast, > averaged less than two. > > After three people leapt from the Ellington in a single 10-day period > in 1985, a consortium of civic groups lobbied for a suicide barrier to > be erected on the span. Opponents to the plan, which included > the National Trust for Historic Preservation > <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_trust_for_historic_preservation/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, > > countered with the same argument that is made whenever a suicide > barrier on a bridge or landmark building is proposed: that such > barriers don’t really work, that those intent on killing themselves > will merely go elsewhere. In the Ellington’s case, opponents had the > added ammunition of pointing to the equally lethal Taft standing just > yards away: if a barrier were placed on the Ellington, it was not at > all hard to see exactly where thwarted jumpers would head. > > Except the opponents were wrong. A study conducted five years after > the Ellington barrier went up showed that while suicides at the > Ellington were eliminated completely, the rate at the Taft barely > changed, inching up from 1.7 to 2 deaths per year. What’s more, over > the same five-year span, the total number of jumping suicides in > Washington had decreased by 50 percent, or the precise percentage the > Ellington once accounted for." > > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html?pagewanted=print > > Beth Benoit > > Granite State College > > Plymouth State University > > New Hampshire > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd0da&n=T&l=tips&o=3639 > > <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd0da&n=T&l=tips&o=3639> > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3639-13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > <mailto:leave-3639-13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3645 or send a blank email to leave-3645-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
