The relative risk of suicide, as compared with murder, increased substantially with age for white juveniles
Between ages 7 and 12, a white youth was at greater risk of being murdered than of committing suicide. For example, a 10-year-old white youth was 3 times more likely to be murdered than to commit suicide. However, between ages 13 and 17, the threat of suicide increased, so that by age 17, a white youth’s death was 56% more likely to be a suicide than a murder. Similarly, when American Indian youth passed their 12th birthday, their risk of committing suicide became greater than their risk of being murdered.
At each age from 7 through 17, however, Asian youth and black youth were more likely to be murdered than to commit suicide. For example, at age 17, Asian youth were nearly 1.5 times and black youth nearly 8 times more likely to be murdered than to commit suicide between 1981 and 1998.
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| Juvenile Suicides, 1981–1998 | |