La configuración de los delitos de incitación al suicidio y a las autolesiones a través de las TIC

This paper analyses Articles 143 bis and 156 ter of the Spanish Criminal Code, introduced by Organic Law 8/2021 of 4 June on the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents against violence. Through a systematic examination of both offences, it explores their objective and subjective elements, the legally protected interests, and their classification as crimes of abstract endangerment and pure activity, aimed at the preventive protection of the safety and health of minors and persons with disabilities requiring special protection. The article also examines the tensions that these provisions generate with the principles of legality, harm, proportionality, and minimal intervention, questioning their actual necessity and consistency within the current criminal justice framework. Finally, it considers the interpretative and evidentiary challenges arising from their broad and indeterminate wording, and proposes several de lege ferenda reforms aimed at achieving a more precise definition of the typical behaviours and a more proportionate system of penalties, so as to prevent their application from degenerating into manifestations of symbolic criminal law.