MP Louis Ng had posed a parliamentary question on how many arrests have been made in 2015 for attempted suicides, police protocol and trainings for such arrests and if the Ministry will consider having police suicide prevention practices that do not involve arrests.

Read the written reply in full here.

In 2014, 901 people in Singapore were arrested for attempted suicide. Astonishingly, that figure is higher than arrests for virtually every other major offence in this chart, including outrage of modesty, rioting, serious hurt, housebreaking, robbery, snatch theft, rape, and theft of motor vehicle.

Source: https://data.gov.sg/dataset/islandwide-persons-arrested-for-selected-major-offences

In our recent report, we called for the reform of suicide laws and the improvement of support systems for those in distress – specifically, it seeks the reform and eventual repeal of Section 309 of the Penal Code, which makes attempted suicide an offence.

The report includes accounts from women that AWARE spoke to, who had negative experiences with law enforcement action related to Section 309, including traumatising investigations, fear of seeking help and mocking, unsupportive officers. Read our report here.