Stalking can be a serious crime, with profound links to domestic violence and a general pattern of male violence, especially violence against women. The phrase has also entered popular culture, however, and is used in ways that obscure its serious and potential nature. As with other crimes that enter the lexicon of exaggerations – such as starvation, murder, rape and burglary – use of the term in a rhetorical or casual sense diminishes its seriousness and harms us all by debasing the language and obscuring the real victims of this and other crimes. Understanding a few key things about stalking is key to substantive and fruitful discussion.

Stalking often exists within a continuum of violence. Before it was first used in its current, criminal sense, “stalking” referred to the stealthful pursuit of individual game animals, as in hunting with the express purpose of killing stalked prey. In its modern legal sense it is strongly correlated with a general sense of male ownership as expressed in the classical Roman notion of paterfamilias where a patriarch held complete legal control over the lives of “his” wife and children. As a sociological and psychological norm, this attitude and belief strongly persists in our own time, and criminologically is highly correlated with sexual assault, domestic violence and murder-suicide or even “familicide” where an entire family will be killed. Whatever their motives, many stalkers seem to have a clear and dangerous belief that their target is somehow their property, regarded perhaps as a valuable object but equally disregarded as an object.

Stalking is not normal or romantic behavior. Although many romantic stories in our culture include elements of obsessive fixation or even violent behavior, these behaviors would often fall into the category of inappropriate in our modern culture, and many of them are clearly illegal, often felonies. Romantic readings of Shakespeare tend to overlook the violence of their settings and indeed that such violence was remarkable even in more violent times for its violence. Much as acts which were seen as romantic in the past are now understood to be pedophilia, sexual assault, “date rape” or other crimes, so many obsessive or personally-focused behaviors may be considered stalking.

The first stalking law was passed in 1990, in partial response to the murder of Rebecca Schaeffer, an attractive white actress in southern California. Today, most states have some variation on a stalking law, many based on the National Criminal Justice Association’s 1993 Model Anti-Stalking Code for the States. As published by the National Center for Victims of Crime’s 2007 publication “The Model Stalking Code Revisited: Responding to the New Realities of Stalking,” it “involves severe intrusions on the victim’s personal privacy and autonomy,” and “conduct often becomes increasingly violent over time.” Specific elements of stalking vary from state to state but almost always include unwanted contact, waiting at a person’s workplace/home/school, following or inappropriate appearances, especially within a broader relationship history of past sexual conduct or domestic violence. Specific elements of stalking may sometimes include behaviors also classifiable as assault, menacing or trespassing. United States Department of Justice circular NCJ 224527 “Stalking Victimization in the United States,” published in January of 2009, provides more detailed information on stalking gathered as part of its National Crime Victimization Survey, where the psychological aspects of stalking for victims and perpetrators are addressed in some detail.

Stalking is strongly correlated with male violence. Although people of any gender may engage in stalking behaviors against people of any gender, every major study finds that most perpetrators are male, most victims are female, and the presence of an intimate relationship prior to a stalking is strongly indicative of other domestic violence. The average duration of a stalking is approximately two years, with most victims being stalked using more than one method and contacted weekly or more often. Two thirds of intimate-partner  victims report a history of physical violence by their stalker and three quarters are verbally threatened with physical violence. The absence of these behaviors does not negate the facts and experience of atypical stalking, but should always be understood as the background to all stalking. Even grimmer numbers are associated with the murders of women by their intimate partners, with 76% of women killed by their intimate partners being stalked before their deaths and 54% having reported that stalking to police before being killed. Accusations of stalking must always be understood within this context.

There are many resources to help those accused of or victimized by stalking. These include but are not limited to

Wikipedia article on Stalking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking

Oregon Anti-Stalking Law ORS 163.732
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/163.html

Washington Anti-Stalking Law ARCW 9A.46.110
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9A.46.110

New York Times 14feb09 “Though Many Are Stalked, Few Report It” by Elizabeth Olson
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/us/15stalk.html

Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime
http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_Register204

Stalking Questions and Answers from the National Center for Victims of Crime
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32456

Stalking Safety Plan Guidelines from the National Center for Victims of Crime
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32460

Stalking and the Law, from the National Center for Victims of Crime
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32514

Stalking: Lessons from Recent Research from National Institute of Justice
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/speeches/stalk.htm

Criminal Stalking Laws by State
http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_State-byState_Statutes117