Stalking

Overview and History of Stalking

While stalking behaviors have been recorded as far back as ancient times, stalking is a construct that did not emerge until the end of the 20th century. Behaviors that are today identified as stalking behaviors were known prior to the 1980s as harassment, threats, annoyance, other obsessive behaviors, or domestic violence. Stalking was seen as a “women's issue” and was highly associated with domestic violence and battering. Even today, the majority of stalking victims are female, and the majority of stalkers are male. In fact, what are now considered stalking behaviors were often associated in classical times and throughout literature with appropriate and desirable romantic overtures. Many of these stories feature men sneaking around outside women's windows and vying for their attention, and people sending uninterested lovers daily letters and poems for years until the objects of their desire finally concede.

In the early 1980s, a study documented a social problem: the persistent pursuit of women by ex-partners. The behavior at that time was called harassment, obsession, or psychological rape. At first the media took cues from the literature, portraying the harassers as lovesick, nonviolent men, and assigned some measure of responsibility to the victim. By the late 1980s, however, several undesirable behaviors were molded into a single construct termed stalking.

This turning point came in 1989 with the death of a popular, high-profile young actress named Rebecca Shaeffer, who starred in the television program My Sister Sam. Shaeffer was pursued and eventually fatally shot outside her apartment by an obsessed fan. Her story received continued national attention and helped to define the term stalking as a construct encompassing more than lovesick young men following love interests.

The media began to portray stalking as dangerous, malicious behavior, and along with researchers, began to draw parallels between high-profile cases like Shaeffer's and other cases involving noncelebrities. Perceptions of stalking have since been studied, and although [Page 820]the most common stalker profile is an ex-intimate or relational partner, research suggests that most people perceive stalking by a stranger to be more dangerous than stalking by acquaintances.

Stalking Law

After the death of Shaeffer, California passed the first antistalking legislation. Other states followed this example, and there are now stalking laws in all 50 states and at the federal level. Congress made interstate stalking a federal criminal offense in 1996 and later added the criteria of stalking via electronic communications. In 2006, an amendment expanded federal stalking legislation to include behavior that caused substantial emotional distress to the victim and surveillance of a victim via global positioning system (GPS).

...