Is it fair to close off a school's roof just to prevent suicide?

[tsukikage]

This is going to sound incredibly odd, but I read in today's J-List newsletters that "many schools permanently close the roof area because Japan has such a terrible problem with suicide", and my first thought was that that's really stupid. The really odd thing is that one of my three reasons was that if someone really wants to commit suicide, it's not fair to just be like "nope, sorry, that method's not an option to you; keep living a hopeless life until you can find some other method you're brave enough for". I dunno, I blame it on my 5 hours of sleep I got last night. But from a more sane perspective, do they honestly think that if someone's suicidal but is prevented from jumping off their school's roof that they'll instead go "Ah, okay, lemme go talk to a counselor instead and try to work through my life's issues instead." It just seems like it would be a terribly ineffective prevention measure compared to promoting crisis hotlines and the like. And on top of all that, it's not fair to the students who'd just want to enjoy their lunch or whatever on the roof. You're going to spoil that opportunity for fresh air and a a bit of solitiude simply out of paranoia that some student will have had too much?

I dunno, maybe I'm just being stubborn here.

Comments

[carve037.livejournal.com]

The flip side is what the fuck do they need the roof to be open for? Seems like a security hassle they don't need.

[darkjing.livejournal.com]

It's not really that locking off the roof is supposed to help them rethink the idea. It's more the School doesn't want their students jumping off their roof. Sadly it only takes a few to ruin something for the majority in society these days.
I personally like the idea of being able to go on the roof and hang out/relax.