Definition of Stalking

Stalking is a pattern of harassing or threatening behaviors. These behaviors may include following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of employment, making phone calls, leaving written messages or objects/gifts, sending emails, faxes or letters, or vandalizing a person's property.  A U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report on stalking victimization defines stalking as: "A course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear." The report found that in one year, approximately 3.4 million people 18 years or older were being stalked in the United States. From:  Stalking Victimization in the United States, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, January 2009. Stalking often leads to the serious injury or even death of the victim.

Most stalkers are male, and a majority of those who are stalked are women. Although stalking of strangers does occur, in the vast majority of cases, the stalker and victim know each other. The stalker and victim are often current or former intimate partners. Women are frequently stalked by their former partners after they leave or attempt to leave their abuser. From:  Office of Justice Programs, Stalking and Domestic Violence (1998). Men who stalk former intimate partners are also more likely to be violent than those who stalk strangers. From:  Stalking Study Shows That Most Stalking Involves Intimates, Seriously Impacts Victims, and Receives an Inadequate Response, Violence Against Women 3-20 (Joan Zorza ed., 2002). In the U.S. Department of Justice report statistics indicated that approximately 30 percent of stalking cases are between intimate partners (current or former). The report also found that 45 percent of cases involve a stalker the victim hardly knows, called an acquaintance stalker. An acquaintance stalker could be a neighbor, coworker, or classmate, or any person the victim has briefly encountered. From:  Stalking Victimization in the United States, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, January 2009.

Naming these behaviors "stalking" is useful in a number of ways. First, the stalking itself, and not just the assault which often results, is a form of violence. The batterer is taking specific actions, such as calling or appearing at a place of work, that are designed to intimidate and coerce his former partner. Second, the term "stalking" identifies a pattern of behaviors that often leads to serious or fatal attacks. Identifying the pattern of behaviors can therefore be useful in taking steps to prevent an assault. Third, naming this pattern of behaviors helps to convey the seriousness of these behaviors. Individually, the acts that constitute stalking, such as telephone calls, may appear to be relatively innocent. Taken together, however, they indicate the presence of a severe threat to the victim.

The increased use of technology in society today has created more opportunities for stalkers to track their victims. Cyberstalking and electronic monitoring are two forms of stalking used to track a victim through technology. The National Center for Victims of Crime defines cyberstalking as:  “Threatening behavior or unwanted advances directed at another using the Internet and other forms of online and computer communications. Cyberstalking takes many forms such as: threatening or obscene e-mail; spamming (in which a stalker sends a victim a multitude of junk e-mail); live chat harassment or flaming (online verbal abuse); leaving improper messages on message boards or in guest books; sending electronic viruses; sending unsolicited e-mail; tracing another person's computer and Internet activity, and electronic identity theft.” From:  Cyberstalking, The National Center for Victims of Crime.

In the National Crime Victimization Survey, over one in four victims of stalking said they had been cyberstalked. 83% of victims reported being cyberstalked through email and 35% reported being cyberstalked through instant messaging. One in thirteen victims said their stalker used electronic monitoring to stalk them, such as video cameras, digital cameras, global positioning system (GPS), and listening devices. From:  Stalking Victimization in the United States, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, January 2009. The National Center for Victims of Crime Stalking Resource Center has recommended that states review their laws to make sure that they have taken the necessary steps to prohibit and punish cyberstalking:  "States should look at their stalking, cyberstalking, and other related laws to ensure their citizens have the same protection from stalkers who use computer spyware or video cameras as they do from those who physically follow, harass, or threaten them."  From:  Stalking Technology Outpaces State Laws, Stalking Resource Center.

Victims and police alike may fail to identify stalking and harassing behaviors as "stalking." In Executive Summary of Stalking: Its Role in Serious Domestic Violence Cases, Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thornes report on their findings after examining 1,785 misdemeanor and felony cases involving intimate violence handled by the model Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team (DVERT) in Colorado. In reviewing victim and police narratives describing the perpetrators' conduct, the researchers found that although 16.5% involved stalking-like behaviors, the victim used the word "stalking" in only 2.9% of the cases, and the officer identified the conduct as "stalking" in only 7.4% of the cases. A suspect was formally charged with stalking in only one of the cases reviewed. From: Joan Zorza, The Role of Stalking in Serious Domestic Violence Cases, in Domestic Violence Report, vol. 8, no. 5, 68, 68 (June/July 2003). As Zorza explains further, "[a]lmost certainly these findings undercount the prevalence of stalking since victims were not explicitly questioned about the suspect's stalking behaviors."

Victims of stalking should document all contact or other incidents involving the stalker (including the time, date, kind of contact and nature of any threat or injury), keep all objects or gifts received from him, and save all messages he may leave (whether recorded or in writing). Verbal communications should be recorded; it is important to write down exactly what the stalker said, even if the words are embarrassing. Women who experience stalking should also engage in safety planning. It may be useful to change telephone numbers and keys, to vary routes to work and home or regularly scheduled activities, and to inform employers, family and friends that the victim does not want the stalker to be given her contact information.

Anti-Stalking Legislation

Since the early 1990s, legislation criminalizing "stalking" behavior has been passed in all states in the United States. The effectiveness of this anti-stalking legislation in promoting women's safety, however, is not yet clear. Anti-stalking legislation recognizes this behavior as wrong and contributes to an awareness that stalking is a form of domestic violence. Stalking provisions allow prosecutors to add additional charges and can, in some cases, prevent violence by criminalizing behavior that would otherwise not be actionable.

At the same time, however, the passage of such laws does not affect the underlying problem of men's violence toward women. Nor do such laws eliminate the obstacles—prosecutorial inaction, light sentences, ineffective orders for protection—that women face in gaining protection from violence. Advocates argue that for anti-stalking legislation to be effective, these laws must be combined with training programs to educate participants in the medical and legal communities as well as with policies and protocols to improve the consistency and efficacy of the responses of these communities. From:  Nancy K.D. Lemon, Domestic Violence & Stalking: A Comment on the Model Anti-Stalking Code Proposed by the National Institute of Justice (1994).

Some jurisdictions are experimenting with a community policing model in organizing their responses to stalking. For example, the community policing model was chosen as a basis for the Model Stalking Protocol developed by the National Center for Victims of Crime because

[t]raditional 'reactive' policing is ill-suited to the challenges [of policing stalking] because it means waiting for something to happen and then responding. Where there is an ever-present risk that stalking will cross over into physical violence and victim safety and prevention are priorities, such an approach inevitably falls short. Stalking by its nature calls for early intervention, preventative action, and proactive problem solving.

From:  Creating an Effective Stalking Protocol, National Center for Victims of Crime 2 (April 2002).

Tatia Jordan, The Efficacy of the California Stalking Law: Surveying Its Evolution, Extracting Insights from Domestic Violence Cases (1995), offers a summary of common stalking behaviors, an overview of genesis of California's stalking law, and a collection of recommendations concerning anti-stalking legislation.

Michael J. Allen, Look Who'stalking: Seeking a Solution to the Problem of Stalking (1996), provides an overview of stalking legislation in Great Britain.

Katrina Baum, Ph.D., Shannon Catalano, Ph.D., Michael Rand and Kristina Rose, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Stalking Victimization in the United States (January 2009), results of a National Crime Victimization Survey conducted in 2006, includes statistics and tables of the findings. 

Stalking Technology Outpaces State Laws, Stalking Resource Center, The National Center for Victims of Crime (2003), discusses cyberstalking, cyberstalking laws, and recommendations for cyberstalking laws.

For a list of research and reports on stalking, click here.