Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Stalking

Stalking, also referred to as criminal harassment, is a pattern of unwanted pursuit, intrusion, or harassment that causes a reasonable person fear or sense of threat regarding self or family. Given that a significant portion of stalking emerges from prior relationships, and that many stalkers seek reestablishment or enhancement of intimacy, it is closely related to issues of courtship, relationship breakup, and disjunctive or asymmetric types of relationships. When unwanted stalking and stalking-like activities are explicitly intended to reestablish intimacy with the former partner, it is referred to as obsessive relational intrusion, unwanted relationship pursuit, or obsessive relationship pursuit. The history, nature and prevalence, processes, effects, and forms of coping with stalking are examined in this entry.

History

Different jurisdictions and statutes specify different features, but there are several common conditions of stalking. There must be a course of conduct or pattern of behavior that typically requires that more than one behavior is involved across more than one time and place. The behavior must be unwanted. The characterization of harassing, pursuing, intrusive, or violent behaviors indicates that the behaviors are not forms of protected speech and serve no other legitimate purpose such as sales or picketing. In some laws, this means that the pattern of behavior must be intended to cause fear. Some statutes clarify the requirement that the threat is credible, indicating that even if the threat is not imminent, it is intended to cause fear.

The process of stalking has been identified in ancient narratives, but its modern representation has been closely tied to Hollywood characterizations of the stalker in violent dramas (e.g., Play Misty for Me, Cape Fear, and The Fan). Stalking first became a crime in 1990 in the state of California. Within a relatively short time after the 1990 law, dozens of state and national jurisdictions passed legislation criminalizing this conduct. Stalking laws recognize the possibility that a course of conduct may not involve actual communicated threats, but as a collective pattern of behavior may amount to a threatening experience. Stalking often involves a campaign of writing letters; making telephone calls; showing up at work, at school, or at a place of worship; waiting on a doorstep; leaving odd gifts; leaving tokens on a car windshield; and other such intrusive attempts at contact. If these last for months, or even years, it is the collective impact of such behavior that becomes threatening in its relentless persistence and deviance in the face of clear messages to cease and desist.

Nature and Prevalence

Research across many studies and countries indicates that 75 to 80 percent of stalking emerges from some type of preexisting relationship, and approximately half of stalking cases represent the vestiges of a previously romantic relationship. Studies vary considerably in their methodologies and populations and, thus, their estimates of prevalence. Conservatively designed studies indicate that less than 5 percent of men and 6 to 12 percent of women will be stalked in their lifetime, whereas many other studies indicate that approximately 17 percent of men and 25 percent of women have been stalked, and higher percentages of both have experienced unwanted relationship pursuit. Research indicates that approximately 75 percent of stalking victims are females, and approximately 75 percent of stalkers are male, with the vast majority of stalking being both heterosexual and within ethnic group. In contrast, studies of unwanted relationship pursuit, especially studies of college samples, tend to find little evidence of sex differences.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution