Up to five years in prison for self-harm threats under new Scots law | Encouraging or assisting an individual to self-harm has been criminalised in Scotland as new legislation takes effect.
by backupJM
Up to five years in prison for self-harm threats under new Scots law | Encouraging or assisting an individual to self-harm has been criminalised in Scotland as new legislation takes effect.
by backupJM
5 comments
>Those found guilty of the crime, which can be committed online, in correspondence or publications, or in-person, can be sentenced up to five years in prison.
>The law applies regardless of whether the person goes on to harm themselves, in an attempt to make the internet safer.
>It was first passed by the UK Government under the Online Safety Act 2023 and extended to the Scottish Parliament through a legislative consent motion in June.
>self harm threats
Can it also mean threats to harm yourself as part of coercive control to keep a partner? Sometimes things like ‘You leave me and I’ll do X to myself.’ can be used to prevent someone from leaving an abusive relationship.
> assisting an individual to self-harm
How is that self harm? Sounds like assault to me.
I think this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what self-harm actually is. People self-harm for a range of reasons, but it is generally a self-soothing action, with two reasons being:
1) to focus the overwhelming emotional pain one is feeling into a singular, physical sensation, giving the self-harmer agency and temporary control during a time when they are feeling overwhelmed.
2) To feel something when one feels has felt nothing at all for a long period of time; finally feeling a specific feeling, even if at feeling is pain, can help someone get through a moment of crisis.
Self-harm can be a self-soothing behaviour that powerfully *reduces* a person’s likelihood of suicide or other behaviour, but ignorant, pearl-clutching legislation like this does a lot of harm. Better government action would be to significantly increase funding for mental health services and the NHS more generally, and the government should be *de*-stigmatising self-harming, not stigmatising it with toxic legislation like this.
Everyone I knew in school would be a criminal because we used to tell each other several times a day “to fuck off and die ya stupid cunt!”