How to prevent text taunting to suicide among teenagers?
A few years ago, 18 year old Conrad Roy killed himself after his 17 year old girlfriend Michelle Carter encouraged him to commit suicide over text messages. Michelle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and is now serving a 15-month jail sentence. Her conviction was appealed by her lawyer to the US Supreme Court but despite the numerous First Amendment issues related to the handling of the case, Michelle was ordered to serve her sentence. In a recent article, Daniel Pollack, a professor at Yeshiva University’s School of Social Work in New York City, takes a look at some of these issues and suggests what can public human services agency or child protective services (CPS) do to discourage this macabre text taunting to suicide activity.
The article can be downloaded here