PUBLIC Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday expressed an interest in initiating debates on decriminalising attempted suicide, a move already made by more than two dozen countries across the world.Minister Ramjattan was addressing the launching of the Guyana Interagency Suicide Prevention Helpline by the Guyana Police Force at the Police Training College.
The announcement was made in the presence of Social Protection Minister Volda Lawrence, Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud and other senior and junior ranks of the Police Force as well as several stakeholders.
Currently Chapter 801, Section 96 of the Criminal Law Offences Act states that anyone who attempts to commit suicide would be guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to imprisonment for two years.
“So I want to urge a debate on the decriminalisation of attempted suicide in our country. It will be a useful debate, it might carry the line of the most recent being whether the 2am (2 o’clock) curfew will stop crime or not. I supposed this is another matter that will create some controversy but it is a necessary controversy in my opinion,” Minister Ramjattan stated.
The minister said the move provides an opportunity for the experts to get to the bottom of what really causes persons to commit the act.
This, he said, can be known when persons are given a chance to be rehabilitated and receive counselling rather than being placed in jail where they then become the victim.
The minister also pointed out that scientific studies have proven that penal actions of that nature could be a whole unnecessary move and very self-defeating. Many of those persons who commit and/or attempt to commit suicide do so in the hope of escaping from grave problems or a position of perceived hopelessness.
He said such persons actually need adequate counselling and medical assistance since punishing survivors does not address the root causes of the issue which led to the attempts in the first place.
Ramjattan said he anxiously awaits any arguments on the other side as to why the matter of attempted suicide should not be struck off the law books.
According to Ramjattan, he is also of the view, supported in a report released by the World Health Organization in 2014, that doctors need to be more involved in dealing with the cases of attempted suicide and not so much the Police.
“So my recommendation is that Guyana should move towards the decriminalisation of attempted suicide and I will like to hear the arguments on the other side, why it should remain in the law books as an offence,” Ramjattan stated.
The minister said it is also his personal wish for persons, rather than being jailed, to lead a productive life after a period of counselling. He stressed, however, that decriminalising the act itself will not heal the social ills of individuals who feel inclined to engage in such attempts but the culture has to change as well as cultural programmes of sensitization.
Ramjattan said he hopes the Guyana Interagency Suicide Prevention Helpline will be a real lifeline and not only must it work but it must work and be improved each day.
“We must have it as a system, not a ‘fly by night’ and then it dies by day – we want this thing to work and so I must congratulate the efforts of Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud and all the other agencies,” Ramjattan added.
France was one of the first countries to decriminalise the act of attempted suicide followed by sixty-nine other countries. The entire North America and Europe have all decriminalised the act of attempted suicide as well as some countries in South America.