The underestimation of suicide is common in most countries, and suicide statistics of non-Indigenous Australians are underestimated by 15 to 50 per cent.
Professor Belinda Carpenter, in a study conducted with Professor Gordon Tait from the Faculty of Education, interviewed 32 coroners in metropolitan and regional areas of Australia, with the aim of investigating the mechanisms leading to this underestimation.
Their research found that coroners:
- felt confined to a binary finding of suicide/not suicide, and
- were reluctant to find suicide to spare grief and/or stigma for the family.
You can find out more about their findings in the QUT News article.
About Belinda Carpenter
Belinda is the Associate Dean, Research in the QUT Faculty of Law. In 2012, Belinda because the inaugural Director of the QUT Crime and Justice Research Centre and was the Assistant Editor of the Crime, Justice and Social Democracy journal. Her two areas of research expertise are sex crimes and death investigation.
You can learn more about Belinda and her research and publications in her staff profile.
