Stalking
By: Angels In Blue
What is stalking?
Stalking generally refers to harassing or threatening
behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person,
appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone
calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property.
These actions may or may not be accompanied by a credible threat of serious
harm, and they may or may not be precursors to an assault or murder.
Legal definitions of stalking vary widely from state
to state. Though most states define stalking as the willful, malicious, and
repeated following and harassing of another person, some states include in
their definition such activities as lying-in-wait, surveillance, nonconsensual
communication, telephone harassment, and vandalism. While most states require
that the alleged stalker engage in a course of conduct showing that the crime
was not an isolated event, some states specify how many acts (usually two
or more) must occur before the conduct can be considered stalking. State
stalking laws also vary in their threat and fear requirements. Most stalking
laws require that the perpetrator, to qualify as a stalker, make a credible
threat of violence against the victim; others include in their requirements
threats against the victim's immediate family; and still others require only
that the alleged stalker's course of conduct constitute an implied threat.
The definition of stalking used in the model antistalking
code for states developed by the National Institute of Justice.The survey
defines stalking as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that
involves repeated visual or physical proximity, nonconsensual communication,
or verbal, written or implied threats, or a combination thereof, that would
cause a reasonable person fear," with repeated meaning on two or more occasions.
The model antistalking code does not require stalkers to make a credible
threat of violence against victims, but it does require victims to feel a
high level of fear ("fear of bodily harm").
Facts
Stalking first received widespread public concern in
1980 with the murder of John Lennon, and again in 1981, with John Hinkley
Jr.'s assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. It was not until
the 1989 death of Rebecca Schaeffer, a rising young actress, who was killed
by an obsessed fan who had stalked her for 2 years, that laws were initiated.
As a result, California enacted the first state anti-stalking legislation
in 1990. Since then, 48 other states and the District of Columbia have enacted
anti-stalking laws.
The following data were first released by NIJ in November
of 1997 in a Bulletin entitled The Crime of Stalking: How Big is the Problem?
A more comprehensive overview of the research findings were released in a
April 1998 Research in Brief report entitled Stalking in America, modeled
after the landmark 1992 Rape in America report developed by the Medical
University of South Carolina and the National Victim Center.
Stalking affects about 1.4 million victims annually.
Of those surveyed, eight percent of women and two percent
of men said they had been stalked at some point in their lives. Projected
against 1995 estimates of the adult population, these percentages would result
in 8.2 million female and two million male lifetime stalking victims, most
of whom were stalked by only one stalker.
While stalking is a gender neutral crime, 78 percent
of the stalking victims identified by the survey were women, and 22 percent
were men.
Researchers estimated that approximately one million
women and 400,000 men are stalked each year in the United States.
About half of all female stalking victims reported their
victimization to police and about 25 percent obtained a restraining order.
Eighty percent of all restraining orders were violated by the assailant.
About 24 percent of female victims who reported stalking to the police, as
compared to 19 percent of male victims, said their cases were prosecuted.
Of the cases in which criminal charges were filed, 54 percent resulted in
a conviction. About 63 percent of convictions resulted in jail time.
Most victims knew their stalker. Women were significantly
more likely to be stalked by an intimate partner -- a current or former spouse,
a co-habitating partner, or a date. About 60 percent of stalking by intimate
partners started before a relationship ended. Only 23 percent of stalkers
identified by female victims were strangers. However, men were more likely
to be stalked by a stranger or an acquaintance -- 36 percent of male stalking
victims were stalked by strangers.
Young adults are also the primary targets of stalkers.
For example, 52 percent of the stalking victims were 18-29 years old and
22 percent were 30-39 years old when the stalking started. On average, victims
were 28 years old when the stalking started.
About 87 percent of stalkers were men. Women tended to
be victimized by lone stalkers, but in 50 percent of male victimizations,
the stalker had an accomplice -- usually a friend or girlfriend. Most victims
were between the ages of 18 and 29 when the stalking began.
Stalkers made overt threats to about 45 percent of victims;
spied on or followed about 75 percent of victims; vandalized the property
of about 30 percent of victims; and threatened to kill or killed the pet(s)
of about 10 percent of victims.
In most cases, stalking episodes lasted one year or less,
but in a few cases, stalking continued for 5 or more years. When asked why
the stalking stopped, about 20 percent of the victims said it was because
they moved away. Another 15 percent said it was because of police involvement.
Also, stalking of women victims often stopped when the assailant began a
relationship with a new girlfriend or wife.
Results from the survey also indicate that female victims
were significantly more likely than male victims (28 percent and 10 percent)
to obtain a protective or restraining order against their stalker. Of those
who obtained restraining orders, 69 percent of the women and 81 percent of
the men said their stalker violated the order.
Overall, 13 percent of female victims and nine percent
of male victims reported that their stalkers were criminally prosecuted.
These figures increase to 24 percent and 19 percent, respectively, when only
those cases with police reports are considered.
About one-third of stalking victims reported they had
sought psychological treatment. In addition, one-fifth lost time from work,
and seven percent of those never returned to work.
Recommendations to address the crime of stalking included in the Report
are the following:
Stalking should be treated as a significant social problem.
Credible threat requirements should be eliminated from
anti-stalking statutes.
Research on stalking should move beyond "celebrity stalking"
and focus on acquaintance and intimate partner stalking.
The nation's criminal justice community should receive
comprehensive training on the particular safety needs of stalking victims.
More research must be conducted on the effectiveness
of formal and informal law enforcement interventions.
More research must be conduct