(Photo: L.A. County officials present research into child deaths at a news conference in Downtown Wednesday. Photo by Eric Leonard.)
The latest research into child abuse and child deaths in Los Angeles County showed the number of children who committed suicide more than doubled between 2014 and 2015.
23 children took their own lives in 2015, up from 10 during the previous year, according to the L.A. County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse or Neglect.
Family dysfunction or relationship loss were cited as factors in many of the suicides, of which more than half were carried out by hanging.
The Council’s report said it appeared many of the suicides were impulsive, rather than acts planned out in advance.
“Overall, the child death rate in this County from all causes except natural has declined from 196 in 2014 to 189 in 2015,” said executive director Deanne Tilton Durfee.