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International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice
43 (2015) 326e341
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijlcj

Aggressive suicide
Jason Manning*
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University, United States
Available online 13 June 2015

Abstract

While suicide is often considered deviant, it may also be a kind of social control that expresses and
handles moral grievances. The moralistic nature of suicide is especially clear in cases where suicide is
used to bring harm against othersdthat is, cases in which suicide is a kind of interpersonal aggression.
The current paper explores aggressive aspects of suicide in a variety of social contexts. Anthropological
studies reveal that in many tribal and traditional societies killing oneself is a recognized means of pun-
ishing others, who will be subject to supernatural curses or sanctions administered by third parties.
Examining a sample of suicide cases in the contemporary U.S., I find that aggressive suicide also occurs in
the modern metropolitan world. The chief punitive mechanism in modern aggressive suicide is the
infliction of psychological harm, such as guilt. Drawing on Donald Black's paradigm of pure sociology and
my previous theoretical work on moralistic suicide, we can explain aggressive suicide with the relational
structure of the conflicts in which it occurs. Available data reveal that aggressive suicide is most likely to
occur among intimates, and that variation in relational distance predicts the nature and severity of suicide's
consequences for the living.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Suicide; Conflict; Aggression; Violence; Social control; Pure sociology

1. Introduction

Across societies and throughout history, suicide has been condemned as a sin, punished as a
crime, pitied as a symptom, or derided as a senseless waste. But though it is often considered

* Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University, 316 Knapp Hall, P.O. Box 6326, Morgan-
town, WV 26506-6326, United States. Tel.: þ1 304 293 8237; fax: þ1 304 293 5994.
E-mail address: [email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2015.05.002
1756-0616/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 327

deviant, self-destruction may also be a technique of social control. From activists who burn
themselves in protest to criminals who hang themselves in remorse, much suicidal behavior is a
way of expressing grievances and securing redress. In other words, self-killing may be
moralistic, belonging to the same sociological family as strikes, boycotts, imprisonment,
execution, banishment, gossip, and vengeance (Baumgartner, 1984: 328e330; Black, 1998: 66,
82; Manning, 2012).
The social logic of moralistic suicide varies from case to case. Usually, however, it combines
the characteristics of two elementary forms of social control: avoidance and aggression.1 First,
suicide involves an extreme curtailment of interaction, permanently severing relations between
the self-killer and his or her adversaries. In this way it resembles other forms of moralistic
avoidance, such as divorcing an abusive spouse, ceasing to speak with an obnoxious ac-
quaintance, or resigning from a corrupt organization (Koch, 1974: 75; Baumgartner, 1984:
328e330; Black, 1998: 82). Secondly, suicide may express hostility and inflict harm upon a
wrongdoer. In this way it resembles other forms of moralistic aggression, such as berating an
incompetent coworker, beating a disobedient child, or executing a convicted murderer.
Here I explore the aggressive aspect of suicide, particularly how self-killers use their death
to strike back at those they regard as wrongdoers.2 The discussion below first addresses patterns
of aggressive suicide described in tribal and traditional settings, and then turns to aggressive
suicide in the United States. Previous research has given scant attention to moralistic or
aggressive aspects of suicide in contemporary settings. To correct this shortcoming, I draw on
data from coroners' official investigations to describe aggressive aspects of suicide in an
American city. Finally, I consider the social habitat in which aggressive suicide occurs.
Following Donald Black's strategy of pure sociology, and my previous theoretical work on
moralistic suicide, I demonstrate how aggressive suicide can be explained by the nature of the
relationship between the potential self-killer and his or her adversary.

2. Aggressive suicide in traditional societies

Most published information on aggressive aspects of suicide comes from ethnographic

studies of tribal and traditional settingsdsocieties that are simple in the sense of having small
local populations, a low division of labor, and little diversity of culture at the local level. One of
the earliest discussions of this topic is that of Jeffreys (1952), who coined the term “Samsonic
suicide” to refer to suicide for the purpose of revenge. Focusing on African societies, Jeffreys
described two major mechanisms by which individuals might use self-destruction to avenge
themselves upon an enemy: 1) supernatural sanctions and 2) sanctions imposed by third parties.
These same mechanisms have been described by a number of other researchers and appear to
have a wide geographical distribution.

2.1. Supernatural sanctions

Suicide is a source of supernatural pollution in many societies, and in some it is said to

unleash forces that punish the self-killer's adversaries. For example, in colonial Tanganyika

1
The elementary forms of social control are classified and explained by Black (1998:Ch.5). They include aggression,
avoidance, negotiation, settlement, and toleration.
2
Here I focus on cases in which suicide itself is the primary means of inflicting punishment rather than a consequence
of directly attacking others, as when a terrorist pilots an airplane into a building to kill its occupants.
328 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

“When a man has a grievance, and receives no redress, he will, as a final resort, go before the
wrongdoer and say, ‘I shall commit suicide, and rise up as an evil spirit to torment you’”
(Gouldsbury and Sheane, 1911, quoted in Jeffreys, 1952: 119). The same practice is found in
traditional India, where members of the Brahman caste might use suicide to avenge an injur-
ydfor “it was generally believed that the ghost of such deceased would harass and prosecute
the offender” (Thakur, 1963: 63). Similarly, among Taiwanese farmers “the ghost of a suicide is
believed to be particularly powerful and absolutely determined to bring tragedy to the people
responsible” (Wolf, 1972: 163).
Posthumous supernatural vengeance is likewise prominent among the Maroon tribes of
Suriname and French Guiana.3 These peoples share a belief in vengeful spirits called
kunud“the spirit of a person or god who was wronged during his lifetime, which dedicates
itself to tormenting eternally the matrilineal descendants and the close matrilineal kinsmen of
the offender” (Price, 1973: 87). One way of initiating a kunu is self-destruction. For example, in
one case among the Aluku, “a man of the Awara Bakka lineage… committed suicide two or
three generations ago when he was unjustly accused of a crime by a man of the Dju lineage.
Since then, [his spirit] has been exterminating the Dju lineage little by little” (Hurault, 1961:
345). Another man “committed suicide when accused of sorcery by the people of his lineage.
Since then, his [spirit] has caused sickness and deaths in his own village” (Hurault, 1961). In
Maroon societies, supernatural aggression lies behind most suicides, and threats of suicide are a
common feature of disputes (Lenoir, 1973: 105; Price, 1975: 36; Bilby, 1990: 46).

2.2. Third-party sanctions

The second mechanism of vengeance occurs when suicide leads to “societal reprisals”
against the victim's adversary (Jeffreys, 1952: 120e121). A common pattern is for a member of
Clan A to commit suicide in response to an offense by a member of Clan B, prompting other
members of Clan A to hold the offender liable for the death, for which they may demand
compensation or swear vengeance. Among the Lusi of Papua New Guinea, for example, bat-
tered wives sometimes commit suicide to mobilize their kinsmen against an abusive husband.
These suicides involve specific behaviors that ensure they will be recognized as moralistic acts
and produce the desired response: by dressing in her finest, killing herself in front of a witness,
and sending a message to identify the cause of her death, “a suicidal woman can reasonably
expect her kin and friends to consider her to have been a victim of homicidedto have been
killed by shameful slander and abuse” (Counts, 1987: 196). The guilty party must then pay
restitution or face vengeance. But payment is no guarantee against violence: one self-killer's
father accepted compensation from her husband and then contracted a sorcerer to kill him
anyway (Counts, 1987: 199). In another incident, a New Guinea Highlander named Ethel
hanged herself after being beaten by her husband Raphael: “Raphael's kin paid a large
compensation payment to Ethel's relatives. In spite of this, Ethel's kinsmen met Raphael's plane
when he returned to the Highlands [from working in nearby New Britain] and hacked him to
pieces with axes as he stepped off the airplane” (Counts, 1987: 199). Though rarely this
extreme, similar patterns of third party sanctions are found throughout New Guinea (e.g.,
Johnson, 1981; Stewart and Strathern, 2003). They are found in other times and places as well.

3
The term “Maroon” refers to several related groups, all of whom are the descendants of escaped African slaves and
share similar patterns of social structure and culture. These groups include the Paramaka, the Aluku, the Ndyuka (or
Djuka), and the Saramaka.
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 329

The Iroquois of North America, for example, considered suicide an act of vengeance and
treated the victim's adversary “much in the same light as a murderer” (quoted in Fenton,
1986:449). And among the Aguaruna Jίvaro of Peru, the family of a suicide victim will
“attempt to exact compensation in goods or cash” from whoever drove their kinsmen to self-
destruction; failing compensation, “they may assume a warlike posture” (Brown, 1986:321).
Aside from kin, other third parties may punish an offender on behalf of the suicide victim.
Among the Cheyenne of the North American plains, self-destruction would mobilize the
community as a whole to banish the victim's adversary from the community (Hoebel,
1976:159). In other settings, it is the government that acts against the self-killer's enemies.
Such was the case in China during the Qing dynasty, where the legal code specified that driving
another to suicide was a criminal offense. The result, according to one missionary, was “that if
you wish to be revenged on an enemy you have only to kill yourself to be sure of getting him
into horrible trouble; for he falls into the hand of justice, and will certainly be tortured and
ruined, if not deprived of life…” (quoted in Perez, Jr., 2005:62). According to this and other
contemporary observers, such vengeance by suicide was common (Perez, Jr., 2005:62e63).
In sum, anthropological evidence indicates that self-killing is often a way of indirectly
attacking others. From the agrarian villages of traditional Taiwan, China, and India to the tribal
societies of New Guinea, Africa, and the Americas, people sometimes resort to suicide to
revenge themselves upon those who have hurt them. But this seemingly exotic phenomenon is
not limited to the intimate communities of pre-industrial societies. Though the details vary,
many modern suicides still include elements of interpersonal aggression.

3. Aggressive suicide in modern society

Several scholars acknowledge that aggressive suicide occurs in industrial societies (see, e.g.,
Douglas, 1967; Maris, 1981). But thus far little research has focused on this type of behavior.
In fact, most studies of suicide in the modern world are focused solely on suicide rates,
comparing, for example, the rates of different cities or nations. Such studies tell us little about
the nature of suicide acts and provide almost no information on moralistic and aggressive
aspects of suicide. The result is that, despite being temporally, geographically, and socially
closer to most researchers, the precise nature of modern suicide is in many ways more obscure
than is suicide in simple tribes in distant times and places. To help fill this gap in our empirical
knowledge I turn to the investigative files of a coroner's office.

3.1. The Coroner's files

The material described below was collected from a coroner's office in a large metropolitan
area in the southern United States. The coroner's office consists of a chief coroner and several
deputy coroners who investigate all cases of violent or mysterious death and determine whether
they are due to accident, homicide, suicide, or natural causes. To do so, they examine a variety
of evidence collected by homicide detectives, the office of the medical examiner, and the
deputy coroners themselves, including physical evidence at the scene of discovery, autopsy
results, interviews with informants about the circumstances leading up to the death, and the
contents of any notes that may have been left by the deceased prior to death (on the investi-
gation of potential suicides see generally Atkinson, 1978; Timmermans, 2005). The deputy
coroners summarize the facts of each case in an investigative report. These reports are stored in
folders along with any relevant documents, such as copies of suicide notes, eyewitness
330 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

statements, or toxicology reports. The cases are then filed in chronological order. I obtained
permission to study these files on the condition of maintaining confidentiality.4
My method of locating cases was to search through the files for cases classified as suicide,
then to examine these cases for evidence that the suicide was a reaction to conflict, including
any evidence of aggression on the part of the deceased. In total I consulted files covering about
15 years during which there were 1114 recorded suicides.5 From these files I recorded infor-
mation on 287 cases stemming from conflict, about one-third of which displayed evidence of
interpersonal aggression on the part of the self-killer.6 Such aggression appeared in two major
forms: 1) verbal aggression and 2) confrontational suicide. The remainder of this section dis-
cusses and illustrates both of these behaviors.

3.2. Verbal aggression

Verbal aggression refers to statements on the part of the victim that express hostility or
condemnation toward another party. Such expressions are aggressive in their own right, and
also indicate that the suicide was at least partly an act of punitive social control. Indeed, many
of these communications seem to maximize the impact the death might have upon others.
The main source of information on verbal aggression in this study is the written notes left by
suicide victims.7 Although suicide notes were recorded in only 15 percent of cases, their fre-
quency in this setting is comparable to that reported for other US cities (Holmes and Holmes,
2005:81; Sanger and Veach, 2008:354). The content of the notes is also similar to that reported
by previous studies (e.g. Shneidman, 1973; Sanger and Veach, 2008; Fincham et al.,
2011:Ch.5). Many are simply goodbyes or instructions regarding burial requests and finan-
cial details, providing little or no information about the reason for the suicide. Of those that
address interpersonal issues, most are not aggressive, but rather express love, gratitude, and
requests for forgiveness. Suicide usually inflicts harm on others, even if there is no evidence
that the harm was intended, and some self-killers attempt to minimize such harm by explicitly
exonerating others from blame. One study, for example, found that 17 percent of suicide notes
had statements to this effect (Sanger and Veach, 2008:359).8 But some self-killers do the
opposite and leave notes that convey criticism, insults, and blame toward others.

4
Therefore all personal names used below are pseudonyms.
5
To assess variation in suicide over time, I sampled from two time periods: 1950e61 and 2003e09. Any differences
between these two periods can be ignored for present purposes. Further details regarding data sources and sampling are
available upon request.
6
The current discussion does not include cases where the suicide was caused by some kind of conflict but the self-
killer engaged in no overtly aggressive actions toward someone else. Also excluded are over two dozen cases of ho-
micide-suicide.
7
While suicide notes are the most common record of verbal aggression in the coroner's files, suicidal individuals may
give voice to the same kind of statements before dying. But exact verbal statements appear in the files much more rarely
than notes, perhaps because such statements are less likely to be reported to investigators. It is common, however, for
those who kill themselves to have threatened suicide during an argument, or perhaps have a history of doing so. Though
their exact words are not recorded in the files, the context of such threats leaves little doubt that their grievances against
the other party had some role in the suicide and that the decedent was aware that the other party knew this.
8
For example, a 26-year-old male wrote: “I hate myself for giving you this shame, but people will understand that
none of it is your fault at this time” (Sanger and Veach, 2008:359). Many suicide victims also appear to underestimate
the impact their demise will have: one American therapist reports that patients who go on to attempt suicide first engage
in a process of justification in which they come to view the act as in the best interest of both themselves and their
relatives (Heckler, 1994). Suicide notes may express similar ideas (Sanger and Veach, 2008).
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 331

The level of rancor varies across such communications. The least aggressive notes contain
subtle criticism and implicit condemnation: grievances are expressed without overt hostility,
openly moralistic language, or direct statements of blame.9 For example, a 47-year-old
housewife who shot herself in the heart left a note to her husband reading: “I have tried so many
times please remember how much I loved you. I wish you could have loved me as I did you”
(Case #422). Though this woman did not explicitly condemn her husband many would un-
derstand her remarks as a complaint and perhaps as implicit blame. In another case, a wife who
had been left by her husband wrote:
Dear Richard,

I never thought it would end this way but I guess its [sic] just as well the children have a
father instead of a mother for I'm not strong enough to go on. I'm so scared I don't know
what to do and don't know where to turn to. I love you and I love them but I know you
don't want to live with me nor love me. I am very sorry. Forgive me… (Case #476).
Sometimes the victim explicitly identifies another's actions as a cause but also reminds the
reader that the decision to die was ultimately his or her own. For example, one recently unem-
ployed man killed himself and left a note revealing that he was in love with his female roommate
and was upset that she did not share his feelings: “I love you. I know we will never be a couple and I
do not wish to live another day without someone who loves me back… you were sent to me to be
my angel and you have never stopped to hear me.” He even mentions having a brief urge to “kill
you & take and replace your heart pills [with] anything that looked like the ones you are to take.”
Yet a few lines later he states: “To whoever reads this, [my roommate] is NOT the one responsible
for my actions, I James Riley chose my own destiny, and I James Riley choose death over living
[with] the fact I will never be with the person I truly loved!” (Case #281).
Such notes are morally ambiguous, as the addition of the statement “don't blame yourself” to
a description identifying another as the cause of the suicide provides a mixed signal.10 But other
notes are much more openly and one-sidedly moralistic, expressing high levels of hostility,
blame, or condemnation. For example, an abusive husband left the following note to his
recently estranged wife:

9
Some suicidal individuals leave notes in which the offense is mentioned only briefly in addition to other problems
implicated in the decision to die, suggesting that the offensive conduct was not a major reason for the suicide. It may be
that many victims are just tying up loose moral ends, using the occasion of their deaths to air grievances not previously
stated or not previously taken seriously. In a similar vein, some also leave parting admonishments of a positive sort,
imploring survivors to work hard, be honest, or keep out of trouble.
10
It is even possible that some absolutions of this kind are meant to increase the impact of suicide by making the victim
appear magnanimous rather than malicious. According to one deputy coroner, referring to a note of this kind left by a
jilted boyfriend: “That's exactly what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to feel guilty for the rest of her life” (Author's
Interview Notes). Similarly, notes sometimes contain statements of self-abasement that may be an attempt to arouse
sympathy. One elderly man, whose complaints included being unloved by his younger wife, tells her “You should not
dislike the people & things that want to like you” but also that: “You will be better off without me. You can go on with
your young life and maybe find happiness.” And he implores her to not waste resources on his funeral: “This will be the
last problem I will cause you, so make it short. Get me a cheap box and one night out and put me in the ground. Keep it
simple. This won't last long and you are a free woman” (Case #175). Such behaviors closely resemble other forms of
moralistic shaming, in which the aggrieved lowers himself or herself in order to express a grievance at another
(Baumgartner, 1984). Among the Orokaiva of New Guinea, shaming might take the form of suicide, but can also be
accomplished by destroying one's own property (Williams, 1930: 332e333).
332 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

Katie,

Maybe you are happy now. I thought about taking you [i.e., committing homicide-
suicide] but I don't think its worth while for I don't believe God will let you live to
[sic] long. For you no good as they come. Take care of [daughter] I don't see how she
could ever love you again. I can't understand why you left for there sure wasn't any one
else if there was I wouldn't do this. Tell that doll I love her and to always be good. I
wanted to talk to her but you made me so mad and I new [sic] I would cry. I have set here
and cryed [sic] for an hour now. I hope you are happy. I don't see how you can stand to
live

… You should frame this where you can read it wonse [sic] and a while you no good bitch
(Case #493).
In another case, a housewife who had argued with her husband (according to him, over his
involvement with another woman) left a note addressed to her sons, imploring them to help
sanction her husband with avoidance:
He has lied to me! Dishonest! Jealous! He needs to move back to his family! And you
boys will be better off! Trust God! He is a phony! I thought love was enough it is
notdBut please do not let him near me bury me near my grandparents do not let him
attend or sit [with] you (Case #111).
Such explicit appeals for action by third parties were rare: most moralistic notes were
addressed directly to the adversary and seemed focused on instilling guilt and remorse. Thus
one young mandwho killed himself by driving his car off the road at a high rate of speeddtold
his former girlfriend that “every time you hear the word suicide or car wreck I hope it reminds
you of me, every time you cut yourself from now on I hope it reminds you of my face” (Case
#205). Another self-killer wrote:
If you are reading this something has happened, you should have took my calls. All we
needed to do was talk. You have always had a problem dealing [with] things. Now how
are you going to deal [with] this. You should have kept your legs closed… I don't care if
you hate me now [because] each time you see our children you will see me… What are
you going to do? I hope you feel as bad as I have the past 4 weeks (Case #247).
The concern with inflicting guilt is not entirely unique to modern society. For example,
among the Tikopiada tribal people of Polynesiadsuicide is often accompanied by harsh words
“to make the survivors regretful” (Firth, 1967:128).
Verbal aggression was found in about 22 percent of the 287 conflict-related cases (or about 6
percent of all suicides in the area). About 13 percent displayed low levels of verbal aggression
(implicit or ambiguous blame and condemnation), while 9 percent displayed high levels (overt
hostility and explicit blame).11 The behavior is thus rare, but its existence shows how suicide
and its consequences can still be a sanction levied against those who have offended the victim.
Also rare, but even more dramatic, is suicide in the form of aggressive confrontation.

11
Female suicide victims were more likely than male victims to leave aggressive notes: 6 percent of males killing
themselves over conflict used high levels of verbal aggression, versus 21 percent of females.
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 333

3.3. Confrontational suicide

Some aggrieved persons choose the location, manner, and timing of their death in such a
way as to maximize the guilt, shame, or trauma that their death will inflict on another. One way
of doing this is to ensure that the target of aggression will be the one to find the body.12 Some
who kill themselves take steps to prevent such discoveries, such as leaving their homes and
traveling elsewhere to commit the act or posting notes outside locked rooms warning loved
ones not to enter. Others, however, engage in the opposite behavior, making it more likely that
another will find their body, sometimes in the most disturbing fashion possible. This may
involve killing oneself at another's dwelling or place of work. For example, one young man was
involved in a dispute with his girlfriend at his own residence. Later that evening he went to his
girlfriend's home (while she was elsewhere) and hanged himself from the roof of her front porch
(Case #135). Similarly, while some who use particularly gory methods of dispatchdsuch as
shooting themselves in the head with powerful firearmsdgo outside to prevent making a mess
in shared living quarters, others, either thoughtless or hostile, do not.13 In one case, an
aggrieved man took gruesome steps to expose his estranged wife to the physical evidence of his
death:
The 45-year-old had escaped from a mental hospital and had been searching for his wife,
whom he had previously threatened to kill. The wife, who was in hiding elsewhere,
summoned police to their home. After their arrival the officers found him barricaded
inside

… They heard a noise, and heard him yell… One of the decedent's sons accompanied
them as they broke the window and forced entry. They found the decedent lying in the
middle room of the house with a shotgun wound to the stomach. The home was covered
in blooddit looked as if he had smeared it on everything with his hands. Officers
thought that he touched everything his wife would use to remind her of his death (Case
#441).
The most common way in which persons expose others to their deaths is by forcing them to
witness it at close range in a pattern I call confrontational suicide. For example, one case
description states that “the decedent had a verbal altercation with his live-in girlfriend, during
which he produced a 9 mm handgun and shot himself in the head in front of her and her father”
(Case #173). Another case involved a man who, according to his cohabiting girlfriend, was very
jealous of her:
That morning they had an argument over her attending the funeral of her former father-in-
law. Despite his objections she attended the funeral and then returned. Upon her return,
they talked for about 30 minutes during which the decedent didn't seem upset or angry.
She then asked him what he wanted for dinner and he mumbled something she couldn't
understand as he walked out the back door. She asked him what he had said and he

12
Note that some cases of self-killers going out of the way to have others discover their bodies that do not display any
signs of conflict or aggression. Rather, it appears that these persons only want their bodies found and buried in a timely
manner, rather than being allowed to decompose before discovery. Thus those who live alone sometimes invite over an
associate shortly before dispatching themselves.
13
Many persons kill themselves in bathrooms, where blood is more easily cleaned off surfaces.
334 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

replied, “I'll show you.” He took a gun from his pocket, chambered a round, and put it to
his head. She yelled for him to stop but he pulled the trigger (Case #209).
Such confrontational suicides are rare: there were only 26 recorded cases, comprising about
12 percent of suicides stemming from conflict (or about 2 percent of all suicides). Some in-
cidents are apparently impulsive, while in other cases aggrieved individuals go out of their way
to make the offending party witness the violence. One man, whose wife had earlier argued with
him for returning home at 4:00 a.m., “laid in bed for a while before rising to start a fire, fry an
egg, and shave.” He then woke his wife from her sleep by shouting “look here, this is it!” just
prior to shooting himself in the chest with a shotgun (Case #420). Others travel to the home or
workplace of another party before killing themselves. For example, one 40-year-old man's
girlfriend “had broken up with him about a week prior because he was an alcoholic and he had
threatened her and her family.” On the night of his death he was drinking with another man,
during which time he repeatedly unloaded and reloaded a gun before declaring that “he was
going over to his ex's house to kick the door in and blow his brains out in front of her” (Case
#482).
Sometimes such confrontational suicides follow one last attempt on the part of the self-killer
to have his or her demands met, with death being contingent on the response of the other party.
Jilted lovers may travel, armed, to meet with their estranged partners, apparently planning to
kill themselves (and/or their partners) if rebuffed. Such contingent killing also occurred in one
case involving conflict between an individual and a state agency:
The decedent went to the social security office to meet a claims representative. He had
filed for disability, but was turned down by the Baltimore office. He came to the local
office and asked the representative to reconsider his claim, stating that he was unable to
work and his wife had to work and to pay his medical bills. The representative advised
him that he could take the information and turn it over to another branch to handle and
that this branch would give him an appointment for an interview. The decedent asked
how long it would be, and the representative said 2e3 months and the decedent said that
this would be too long. The representative said he did not know what else he could do
and the decedent said “I do”, pulled a pistol from his pants pocket, and shot himself in
the head in front of the representative, 58 employees, and as many customers (Case
#491).
Modern technology also allows for confrontation at a distance, as illustrated by the following
case:
Per the decedent's wife, they'd been having domestic troubles for some time, and had been
separated since Sunday following an argument in which she asked for a divorce… That
day at 1:00 p.m. he called her at work and asked her if she could come home early so that
he could talk to her. She said that she couldn't get off work early. He asked her if she had
changed her mind about the divorce and she said no. He then fired a shot into the ceiling
and asked her if she heard it. She said yes. He told her she'd better get home before the
children got home, and then he fired another shot (Case #496).
Note that those who kill themselves in front of another party may also leave notes and make
other statements expressing hostility and blame. In one case, for instance, a man who had just
shot himself in front of his ex-girlfriend said, as he lay on the floor, “I am dying and it's your
fault because you don't love me anymore” (Case #148).
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 335

4. Social control and social structure

Why does aggressive suicide occur? We may answer the question by noting that it occurs in
response to an offensedto the definition of someone's behavior as deviant. Aggressive suicide is in
this sense caused by clashes of right and wrongdmoral conflict (on the concept of conflict, see Black,
1998:xiiiexviii; on the causes of conflict see Black, 2011). But we still face the task of explaining why
the conflict was handled in this way instead of another. Why did the deviance attract this particular
response? Why wasn't the grievance expressed with assault, homicide, or a call to the police?
Any moralistic behaviordaggressive or otherwisedpresents a challenge to social science.
One answer to this challenge is the general theory of social control developed by Black (1976,
1998). Black uses a strategy called pure sociology to explain social control with the social
structure (or social geometry) of the behavior itself (Black, 1995, 2004b). Every instance of social
control has a structure defined by the relative status of the parties, the degree of social distance
between them, and who acts toward whom. Social control may have an upward or downward
direction, depending on whether it responds to the deviance of a status superior (upward) or status
inferior (downward). It may also cross shorter or longer social distances, as defined by the degree
of intimacy, interdependence, and cultural similarity between the parties. And the distance and
direction of social controldits social structureddetermines what form it will take.
For instance, social control may take the form of a blood feud, with two groups engaging in a
reciprocal exchange of revenge killings. Black (1998:75e78; 2004b) predicts, for example, that
feuds are only likely to occur between groups that lack cross-cutting tiesdindividuals with close
relationships to both sides of the conflict. Groups with many cross-cutting tiesdthose linked by a
“tangled network” of relationshipsdare more likely to resolve their differences through extensive
negotiations rather than violence (Black, 1998:85). Stratification also matters: the precise and even
exchange of vengeanceda life for a lifedis only likely between groups that are roughly equal in
size and resources (Black, 1998:75e78; 2004b). When groups are highly unequal, any moralistic
violence that occurs is likely to be unilateraldin extreme cases, the superior group completely
exterminates a group of unresisting inferiors (Baumgartner, 1984; Senechal de la Roche, 1996;
Campbell, 2009). Thus does social structure explain variation in social controldand suicide.
There are several structural conditions that make social control more likely to take the form of
moralistic suicide, including aggressive suicide. Moralistic suicide varies with the inequality of
the parties, their intimacy, their degree of interdependence, and their ability to attract support from
third parties (Manning, 2012). We may thus specify a multidimensional structure in which conflict
is more likely to be handled with self-destruction. The remainder of this discussion will focus on
one important dimension of this social structure: relational distance, or intimacy.

5. The relational structure of aggressive suicide

Relational distance can be measured by “the scope, frequency, and length of interaction
between people, the age of their relationship, and the nature and number of links between them
in a social network” (Black, [1976] 2010:41). Relational distance is least, and intimacy greatest,
between those who spend a great deal of time with one another, share many attachments
and involvements, and are in an exclusive relationship without competing ties to others.14

14
Black (2011:21e22) conceives of relational distance as a “zero-sum game,” in which any increase in closeness
between two parties reduces their closeness to all other parties, and vice versa. Thus the fewer ties one has, the closer
each tie will be. Those who spend little time with anyone else are highly intimate with themselves.
336 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

Relational distance is greatest, and intimacy least, between those who lack any ties whatsoever,
such as strangers from mutually alien networks.
Some forms of social control are more likely to occur in close relationships. One such form is
therapy, a supportive and cooperative kind of social control that defines the deviant as a victim in
need of treatment (Black, 1976:47). Blackian theory predicts that therapy is greater at higher levels
of intimacy, and so offensive conduct by an intimate is more likely to be defined as a symptom of
disorder rather than a crime or sin (Black, 1976:47; Horwitz, 1990:81e83; Black, 1995:835, n.7; see,
e.g., Tucker, 1999). Other forms of social control flourish in more distant relationships. This is true of
most species of moralistic violence, the extremes of which are more likely to be directed at distant
acquaintances or total strangers. For example, Senechal de la Roche (1996, 1997) shows that
community outsiders are much more susceptible to lynching than are community insidersdgiven
the same offense, community members are less likely to kill those with whom they share strong ties.
Similarly, the mass killings of terrorism and genocide usually cross the long gulfs of relational
distance separating different nationalities and ethnic groups (Black, 2004a; Campbell, 2009). But
suicide differs from these other kinds of violence, and its structure differs as well: moralistic suicide
varies inversely with relational distance (Manning, 2012; see also Manning, 2014). This pattern can
be observed in the social distribution of aggressive suicide.

5.1. Relational distance in traditional societies

The available literature suggests that in traditional societies aggressive suicide is primarily
found among intimates, such as spouses, lovers, or close kin. Among the Cheyenne, for instance,
suicide to mobilize third parties is only used against family members such as parents and siblings
(Hoebel, 1976). In rural Taiwan, posthumous vengeance is most often used by young women
against their husbands and co-habiting in-laws (Wolf, 1972,, 1975). Similarly, spousal abuse is also
the most common reason for vengeful suicides in Papua New Guinea societies (Counts, 1980, 1987;
Johnson, 1981). Among the Aguaruna of Peru, abused wives kill themselves not only to punish their
husbands, but also their neglectful fathers and brothers (Brown, 1986). The vengeance spirits of the
Maroons usually arise from “stormy” marriages and “lovers’ quarrels” (Price, 1973:88; Bilby,
1990:46). Spouses and nuclear family members are also the main targets of aggressive suicide
among the Iroquois, who may kill themselves in response to abandonment or infidelity. The
following case illustrates the typical pattern of suicide among Iroquois women:
Josephine and Sarah Snow of Allegany relate how their mother's mother was abandoned
by her husband (their mother's father). Another woman took her husband away from her
when their mother was a baby just walking at her side, and she became angry and ate the
[poisonous] root… the attitude of both women is that their grandmother had revenged
herself of her husband's adultery (Fenton, 1941:92e93).
Though the Iroquois consider this kind of suicide a feminine behavior, men may also kill
themselves for similar reasons and with much the same effect. And when scolded, punished, or
treated unfairly by their parents, children too may turn to suicide for revenge (Fenton, 1941).

5.2. Relational distance in modern society

The aggressive suicides found in the metropolitan coroner's files obey almost exactly the
same pattern as those in tribal societies: they are almost exclusively limited to spouses, lovers,
and members of the nuclear family.
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 337

By far the most common targets for aggressive suicide were current or former intimate
partners, usually a spouse or cohabiting boyfriend or girlfriend. In about 85 percent of cases
involving verbal aggression, the target of blame, criticism, or other verbal hostility was an
intimate partner. The pattern is even more extreme for confrontational suicide: 26 out of 27
cases involved someone killing himself or herself in front of a spouse or lover. These self-killers
were often reacting to some reduction in closenessdwhat Black calls “underintimacy.”
Underintimacy includes separation, divorce, and infidelity, all of which cause severe conflict
between intimate partners (Black, 2011:43e54; see also Manning, 2015).
Most of the remaining aggressive cases involved grievances against kin. About 9 percent of
aggressive suicide notes were directed at family members such as such as siblings, parents,
children, step-parents, and step-children. Sometimes multiple relatives were named in the same
note, as in the case of a 66 year-old retiree:
After her husband died, the decedent came to live with her daughter, son-in-law, and
grandson at their home. She had been living there for four years. She had a history of
conflict with her family: she had a habit of locking herself in her room when angry and
had threatened suicide several times in the past. In her suicide note, she complained
bitterly of her treatment within the house and accused her brother (who lives in another
city) of turning her grandson against her (Case #464).
Much rarer than cases involving kin or intimate partners were those involving friends, ac-
quaintances, or strangers. One man left a note condemning an associate who allegedly slighted
him in a business deal; another (quoted above) identifies an attraction to his roommate as the
cause of his death. Virtually no cases were directed at very distant individuals, such as
strangers.15
One reason for the association of intimacy with suicide is that intimate relationships have
higher rates of conflict. But while the frequency and nature of intimate conflict no doubt ex-
plains some of this association, it does not explain it all. This becomes clear when we compare
suicide to other forms of social control such as homicide. Homicide, like suicide, is a severe
and violent reaction to conflict, and it is often used to handle the same kinds of grievances, such
as those arising from abandonment or infidelity. But while suicide increases with relational
closeness, homicide decreases. Thus lovers and kin are opponents in over 90 percent of
moralistic suicides, but these relationships are found in only about 25 percent of all homicides
(see data cited in Cooney and Phillips, 2002:82e86). But not all homicides are social control:
between 20 and 40 percent are primarily acts of predation, as when a victim is killed to
facilitate robbery (Cooney and Phillips, 2002). Even discounting predatory homicidesdwhich
are more likely to involve strangersdno more than half of homicides occur between intimates.
Conversely, distant adversaries are much more common in homicide cases. One study, for
example, found that out of 569 homicide victims 11 percent were killed in domestic arguments,
while 29 percent were killed in arguments of other kinds (Wilbanks, 1984:32). Of homicides
occurring in Philadelphia between 1948 and 1952, 28 percent involved “close friends” and
another 14 percent involved “acquaintances”dcategories barely represented among aggressive
suicides (Wolfgang, 1958:207). And of 508 homicide cases in Detroit in 1972, 48 percent
involved “unrelated acquaintances” (Daly and Wilson, 1988:19). These facts indicate that
distant adversaries are more likely to be punished with outward violence, while close

15
Three aggressive suicides were directed at the Social Security Administration and other state agencies.
338 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

adversaries are more likely to be punished with inward violence (compare Henry and Short,
1954: 17, 108e116; see also Manning, 2014).

5.3. Variation in aggression

Note that closeness of the adversaries in the metropolitan cases is consistent with the
morally ambiguous nature of many suicide notes, which reflect the morally ambiguous nature
of intimate conflict. Black (1998:Ch.8) predicts that social control between strangers and
cultural aliens is harsh and uncompromising, while between intimates right and wrong lose
their clarity and social control becomes less punitive and one-sided. Thus blame is often diffuse
and the expression of grievances is hesitant, qualified, and perhaps mixed with self-criticism.
Closeness hampers moralistic aggression in general, even while encouraging any aggression
that does occur to take on peculiar forms.
Not surprisingly, then, the most violent sanctions imposed by suicidedsuch as blood ven-
geance by the victim's kindarise from a particular combination of closeness and distance:
intimate conflicts that also implicate distant groups. In tribal settings where aggressive suicide
is prevalent, most individuals are enmeshed in solidary kinship groupsdtightly-knit clans or
lineages whose members reside together and interact in almost every domain of life, from
production to worship to defense. The most common locus of aggressive suicide in these so-
cieties is the marital relationship, a close tie that links two otherwise distant groups.16 The
respective families of each spouse, alien and mutually suspicious, are quick to demand justice
in the case of suicide, whether this involves compensation, physical violence, or supernatural
attacks.17 The structure of many tribal marriages is like a loaded gun, and self-destruction is
one way of pulling the trigger.18
Marital relationships in modern society generally lack this structural danger: social life is
atomized and kin are often scattered, so that many marriages are essentially private relation-
ships between autonomous individuals. In fact, modern spouses are in many ways closer than
those in tribal societies, sharing more aspects of their lives and living together at a distance
from kin who might otherwise compete for their time, attention, and loyalty. The harshest
sanctions inflicted by suicide in such a relationship are psychologicaldfocused on altering the
internal state of the adversary. Thus the aggressive aspects of modern suicide are aimed at
directly inflicting guilt or trauma upon those left behind. These sanctions are similar in logic to
therapeutic social control, in that both express a concern with an individual's internal state and
emotional well-being. But whereas therapy seeks to restore normality to disturbed individuals,
psychological aggression seeks to create disturbances in those who are normal. It is a punitive
inversion of therapy that is more likely and more severe in extremely close relationships.
Relational closeness fosters not only therapy, but also anti-therapy.

16
Since relational distance is zero-sum members of highly intimate groups are correspondingly more distant from
everyone outside their group (Black, 2011:21e22, 150e151).
17
The tendency of solidary groups to aggressively and violently pursue grievances has received much attention in the
sociology of conflict and social control. The phenomenon can be explained, at least in part, by Black's (1998:Ch.7)
theory that intimacy breeds partisanship (for applications and extensions, see Senechal de la Roche, 1997, 2001;
Cooney, 1998; Campbell, 2009).
18
Ghostly vengeance behaves in a similar fashion: while suicide of supernatural aggression is greatest among intimates,
the potential for destruction is greatest when the conflict involves separate families. Thus the Maroons believe that the
avenging kunu spirits only operate between two different lineages, and that moralistic suicide within the lineage pro-
duces a lesser curse which is “devoid of the inexorable and definitive character of the kunu” (Hurault, 1961:345).
 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341 339

6. Conclusion

Social scientists often consider suicide to be an act of aggression against the self. Thus
“hydraulic” or “stream” theories seek to explain why aggression, once generated (by, say,
frustration over a loss of economic standing) is channeled inward toward the self or outward
toward others (Henry and Short, 1954; Unnithan et al., 1994). But suicide is not merely
aggression redirected away from an external target: the act of self-killing can still be inter-
personal, and inward violence may actually be outward aggression. From the tribes of New
Guinea to the modern American city, self-destruction can cause tremendous hardship for those
left behind, and some self-killers not only count on these hardships, but attempt to maximize
them.
Though moralistic behaviors are not necessarily aggressive, aggression is usually moralistic:
a way of expressing grievances and punishing offensive conduct. It is social control, and as such
it can be explained with the structural properties of the conflicts in which it occurs. One of these
structural properties is the relational distance between the adversariesdwhether they are
spouses and close kin, mere acquaintances, or total strangers. Across various soci-
etiesdincluding modern Americadthe targets of aggressive suicide are almost always rela-
tionally close, suggesting that intimate grievances are more likely to be handled with this
behavior than with others.
But suicide, including its aggressive varieties, is not the only form of social control
encouraged by intimacy. Close deviance is more likely than distant deviance to be handled
therapeuticallydtreated as an illness in need of a cure (Horwitz, 1990:81e83; Black,
1995:835, n.7; Tucker, 1999). It is also more likely to be tolerateddto be excused and
ignored altogether (Black, 1998:88e89). There is thus variation even within intimate con-
flicts. We can explain some of this variation by accounting for other dimensions of the
conflict structure, such as the relative status of the adversaries, or their relationships with
third parties (see, e.g., Baumgartner, 1992). But for the development and testing of theory to
proceed, we also require more fine-grained analysis of the structure of intimate conflicts.
High-intimacy conflicts are, like the high-energy particles of physics, difficult to observe.
Intimate conflicts repel third partiesdoutsiders are less likely to know their details, and the
more intimate the relationship, the more privatized they become (Black, 1995:835;
1998:134e135; see also Cooney, 2003). But determined sociologists may still be able to view
these conflicts in more detail. Currently, studies using questionnaires such as the Conflict
Tactics Scale provide insights into the frequency of verbal aggression, physical violence, and
negotiation among intimates, but little information on the nature and structure of particular
conflicts (Straus, 1979; Straus et al., 1996). Researchers might fill this gap by cultivating
close ties with disputants (or their survivors), using methods such as in-depth interviews to
slowly and carefully gather whatever information the participants are willing to reveal.
Researchers might also recruit and train lay observers to record cases of intimate conflict that
occur within their own social networks. These informants could serve a bridging function
between distant academic professionals and the intimate conflicts they wish to study,
conveying details that would not be directly visible to an outsider, yet with a degree of
detachment not possible for the disputants themselves. Or perhaps an innovative scientists
will hit upon some other solution altogether. In any case, just as particle physicists develop
ways to observe their elusive subject, so too might sociologists find a way to magnify the
microstructure of social control.
340 J. Manning / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 43 (2015) 326e341

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