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Can people be driven to suicide? Every couple of months a story seems to pop up about a kid who suffered the constant torment of bullies shooting or hanging themselves, and for many the story of Phoebe Prince and others still serve as scary examples of cyber-bullying.
Recently this question was asked again when Tyler Clementi, a freshman college student, jumped off a bridge after his roommate and another student secretly taped him having sex with another man and posted the videos on the internet. His roommate bragged about taping Clementi having sex by posting, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay,” and “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again,” and other similar comments on his twitter account.
Beyond the question of why two people would find it necessary to secretly tape and then make the recording of a private moment publicly available, most people are concerned with what sort of punishment these students will receive for their actions. In the state of New Jersey it’s a fourth-degree crime to collect images that show nudity or sexual content without the consent of the subject, and it is also a third-degree crime to transmit the relevant content. If the guilty students were to be convicted for third-degree offenses they could face up to 5 years in jail. Their school has also assured the public that they have disciplinary plans for both students, stressing that they do not take Clementi’s death lightly. Whether these punishments are fair or not depends on personal opinion and if you think that people can be driven to commit suicide if their conditions are so treacherous due to being tormented and habitually mistreated.
The issue with this question is that it’s impossible to tell exactly what causes people to commit suicide because it’s such a complex subject. Yes, public humiliation, outing, and overall cruelty are legitimate issues to feel distressed and possibly in combination might cause someone to take their life, but many people point out and argue that previous issues could have aggravated the situation and that since the students didn’t literally shove Clementi off the bridge, they are not at all responsible for his death.
Though we’ll see what a jury decides, I personally hope that this young man’s tragic death, which was at least partially influenced by the cruelty of his peers, is recognized and those who perpetuated his death receive some form of punishment.
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