What does the phrase 'suicide net' mean?

I would say it is the nets that Foxconn, Apple manufacturer, installed at its factories to prevent its inmates employees from committing suicide over shitty pay by jumping from the factory roof.

Cornell installed them on the bridges over the gorges. They’re supposed to keep people from jumping off the bridge.

As @ragingloli says it is the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen that made the term notorious by installing nets to prevent a trend in suicides by employees. You can read about it here. Foxconn makes around 40% of the world’s electronic products.

Some prisons in the UK have them as well.

So shouldn’t they be called anti-suicide nets?

People have been trying to get them put on the Golden Gate bridge for years. They’ve been called suicide nets, but more often they’re called a suicide barrier.

I heard the suicide rate at Foxconn is 1/10th the rate of the general population of China. Good to see that the nets have reduced that.

@RocketGuy, you’re right that the rate is reduced… but not that much.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/media-gets-its-facts-wrong-working-at-foxconn-significantly-cuts-suicide-risk/1356:
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Taiwanese-owned Foxconn has had seven suicides this year. That sounds like a lot, but the firm has an estimated 800,000 workers, more than 300,000 of them at a single plant in Shenzhen.

Although exact figures are hard to come by, even the most conservative estimate for China’s suicide rate is 14 per 100,000 per year (World Health Organization). In other words, Foxconn’s suicide epidemic is actually lower than China’s national average of suicides.
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