Running head: STALKING
Stalking an Epidemic in Today’s Society: Learning How to deal with Victimization
Jacqueline Turner and Donnesha Mckenzie
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
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Stalking an Epidemic in Today’s Society: Learning How to deal with Victimization
Introduction
According to the United States Department of Justice, (as cited in Huang, 2009) an
estimated 3.4 million people are stalked annually in the United States. Stalking is a very
dangerous crime that is somewhat overlooked at times. This crime is particularly dangerous
because most people do not even realize that they are being stalked. According to Duntley and
Buss who define stalking as “obsessive rational intrusion unwanted pursuit behaviors” (p. 311).
Which means that someone who is obsessive of another person and is giving the unwanted
attention could be consider a stalker. Within the past five years, studies have been conducted to
characterize stalking types specifically. The two most common names for stalking in our society
are stalker and cyber-stalker. A cyber-stalker would be considered as a person who stalks
another person via internet, or any other electrical device ( Parson-Pollard & Mariarty, 2008).
Debates still continue today to decide whether the two types of stalkers should be considered the
same. In contrast, the debate on a stalker’s gender has been clarified. Most researchers find that
the majority of women in stalking situations are the victims.
Jordan, (As cited in Huang, 2000), speculated that stalking has only recently been
recognized as a significant and widespread problem. Therefore, it is safe to say that some law
enforcement teams have no idea how to properly handle a stalking situation, and the victim may
not find full justice within their case. There are hot lines, counseling services, and support
groups available that the victim can take advantage of to help find this sense of justice after their
traumatic experience(s). This is where a social worker plays a big role in stalking victimization.
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Social workers are expected to meet the needs of the victim by forming a healthy relationship,
and providing a list of the previously mentioned help aids that the victim can consider.
The Origin of Stalking
According to Meloy, the first stalking novel was written in 1866 by Louisa May Alcott.
She titled the novel A Long Fatal Love Chase. Meloy suggested that Alcott may have thought
stalking studies would become widely spread around the world decades later. After the first
stalking crimes in the United States occurred, stalking studies have become just that. (Meloy,
2007).
Duntley and Buss, believed that stalking was a product of evolution to address the
problem of gender competition in mating that has been a repeating issue in history. Some
stalking tactics are used by broken hearted people who are trying and regain love from a past
partner after a breakup. While other broken hearted people turn to stalking as a way to replace
their ex’s. For the most part this tactic is not very successful but it has had some success rate
(Duntley & Buss, 2002).
The first law outlawing stalking was passed in the state of California in 1990. The law
was pushed to be set in place after five stalking related murders took place in Orange County.
The initial murder was of Rebecca Schaeffer, a young, star actress who was shot multiple times
by an infatuated fan. The other murders consisted of four women within six weeks of the
Schaffer case. These women were all killed by either a former boyfriend or husband (Schaum &
Parris 1995, as cited in Tjaden). Quickly after these horrific events, other states wasted no time
in passing their own stalking laws.
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Laws
Initially, states created very diverse laws for stalking, but as time passed, most of the states
amended their laws to bring them closer to those of the 1993 Model Anti-stalking Code from the
National Institution of Justice. In the model it states that for stalking to be considered, the victim
must fear for their safety and that of their family (U.S Department of Justice, 2002). For states
to recognize a stalking situation it has to occur more than once. Even if a person knows they are
being stalked, the state will only persecute the offender if the victims have shown a certain
amount of emotional distress to the crime (Cass, 2011). The author also mentions that because
different states have different laws focusing on stalking it could be almost impossible to come to
an agreeable definition for stalking maybe impossible (Cass, 2011).
Problems Within Stalking Studies
There have been many studies on stalking done recently; the only problem is that most of
these studies have been conducted mostly in other counties such as London. This causes a need
for more statistics if one wants information in the United States. Between countries, surveys
differ in results because researchers are using different kinds of sample groups in their studies.
One country maybe researching adults in their studies, while the other country researches college
students (Cass, 2011).
Types of Stalking
There are many different kinds of stalking, some examples of stalking are cyberstalking,
partner stalking, sending unwanted messages to the victim, and watching the victims every
move. Cyber stalking is a kind of stalking the using electrical devices such as a computer or
cellphone to the stalkers advantage. The problem with cyber stalking is that a lot of people
rarely see the unwanted attention online as stalking; many students see this as being part of the
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western world (Parson-Pollard & Mariarty, 2008). The authors mention a reason why many
people do not recognize cyberstalking is because of music, there have been many songs about
how someone was in love with another person who did not love them back but in the end of the
song the two are a couple. As technology increase the likelihood that cyberstalking will also
increase as well (Parson-Pollard & Mariarty, 2008).
Stalking Studies
Risk Assessment Inventory for Stalking was conducted to determine if student-faculty
stalking occurs, although there is little to none solid evidence this study wanted to evaluated the
relationship between college students and their professors. Although some unwanted contact
that professor received is normal there was some evidence shown that students have stalked
professors in the past. (Winkleman & Winstead, 2011). Winkleman and Winstead (as cited in
Spitzberg & Cupach, 2003) suggested that there are three theories to help determine the idea of
unwanted pursuit. One of the theories is routine activity theory which talks about the interaction
between an offender and their victim, the authors used an example of a female college student
who lives off campus and carries mace is more likely to be stalker then a female college student
who does not, because they are less protected by security. Another theory is attachment theory
which states that students who are less confident in themselves often have a hard time letting go
of a relationship and they tend to stalk their exes. The last theory is linking and obsessive
rumination which focuses on a low goal such as maintaining a relationship getting tangled up in
a higher goal such as self-worth it can produce unwanted attention and pursuit of stalking. These
theories are suggested to be the reason while faculty members are more likely to be victims of
student stalking (Winkleman & Winstead, 2011).
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There have been many studies to determine whether gender differences may play a role in
stalking. Women are tended to be stalked more frequently than their counterparts, but those
studies to prove this have mainly been clinical. According to Winkleman and Winstead there
have been no evidence to prove that women are more likely to be stalked because of their gender
differences from men. Although a study in Italy showed that men who worked in the mental
health profession are more likely to be stalked than females who worked int eh mental health
profession (Winkleman, & Winstead, 2011).
What Makes a Stalker?
Whyte performed at the Broadmoor Mental Hospital in Great Britian during 1990 to
1997, used patients who were admitted for over a year to determine whether or not they fit the
profile to be consider a stalker. The data was collected and compared to a checklist created by
the EP and DR. The main point of this checklist was to see whether or not the patients had made
unwanted attempts on at least 10 different occasions to someone in their life. The cut off for the
10 different occasion was used to make sure they did not get any false positive and also to
decrease the chances of finding someone who was just annoying someone to go on a date with
them. The main point of conducting this study was to “calculate the prevalence of stalking
behaviours in a British forensic psychiatric population and to describe their demographic and
clinical characteristics, as well as their stalking behaviours” (Whyte, 2008, pg.30-31).
Although Whyte did not have the most credible evidence in determining what makes a
stalker. Out of the 362 patients that were admitted to Broadmoor for over a year only 33 patients
met the criteria to be considered stalkers. Out of the 33 patients the majority of them were male
and their ages ranged from 18-68. Most of the patients to be consider stalkers were never
married and did not have any formal education; the majority of these people also fell into the
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same social class. Although the study showed that most of these distinctions were the same for
the patients who did not meet the criteria to be consider stalker to the ones who did (Whyte,
2008).
The forensic history showed that out of these 33 patients, seven of them had been
previously admitted to the mental hospital for showing violent and threatening behavior in other
hospitals. Nearly 27 of these patients had some sort of criminal history the most violent criminal
history being rape. Although most of the stalkers only had one victim, the article states that the
research showed that one patient had 25 victims (Whyte, 2008).
The most common way for these patients to stalk their victims was to write them letters
and to call them and threaten them. In most of the letters the stalker would put in detail of how
they fantasized killing their victims. In some cases the stalker would also seek to gain
information about their victims just to get close with their family members. Once the stalker
obtained their victim’s personal information they were able to successfully find out where they
live and on some occasion they even broke in to their homes (Whyte, 2008).
In all the cases all the patients who meet the criteria for stalking had fallen under the legal
category for mental illness. The most common mental illness was schizophrenia and cluster B
personality disorder. A third of the stalkers had some sort of substances abuse problem and were
using during the time of the incident (Whyte, 2008).
In addition to mental illnesses, another study on stalking was conducted by two
professionals, Brian H. Spitzberg and Alice E. Veksler. Their main focus in the study was
personalities of unwanted pursuers and stalkers. Spitzberg and Veksler originally thought that a
person’s personality plays a greal deal of effect on what makes a stalker. The two researchers
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first asked a group of approximately three hundred students to participate in the study by
referring to a partner of a past or current relationship.
The researchers then asked the students to engage in a survey, and apply the questions to
one partner that best fit an unwanted pursuer persistently. The survey asked specific questions
about the characteristics of the students’ chosen partner, and it also required them to rate the
partner on a personality disorder scale created by Thomas, Turkheimer, and Oltmanns (2003) (as
cited in Spitzberg & Veksler, 2007) , to determine if their partner could be considered normal, or
if they had shown any signs of personality disorders during the course of the relationship.
The personality disorders used in the study were Antisocial, Avoidant, Borderline,
Dependent, Histrionic, Narcissistic, Obsessive-compulsive, Paranoid, and Schizotypal. The key
in the study was to detect a difference in personalities between a person who can be considered a
stalker or unwanted pursuer, and a person who is normal. The researchers predicted that
unwanted pursuers would differ in their personalities than that of a regular person. The results
from the studies showed that there was no significant difference between the unwanted pursuer
and a normal person’s personality, but a slight difference was detected within the Histrionic and
Borderline disorder section of the scale. Although there may have been many symptoms that
contribute to a certain personality, and could lead to unwanted pursuit, the actual truth remains
unknown (Spitzberg & Veksler, 2007).
Side Effects of Stalking
Although there has been an increase in the number of studies done about stalking, there
have not been many studies dedicated to the emotional and psychological impact that stalking
can have on the victims. A study conducted by Pathe and Mullen showed that the majority of
Australian who were stalked had stated that they have developed a higher sense of anxiety and
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that they have problems sleeping at night. Some victims had also indicated that their eating
habits had changed and some have even considered committing suicide. Women who had a prior
relationship to their stalkers were shown to have a higher likelihood of developing PostTraumatic Stress Disorder. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey
conducted one third of women and one fifth of men sought help after being stalked (Abrams,
2002).
Many of these studies are based off reports from newspapers, victim hotlines and police
reports, it is important to get the message out to the public about how stalking can victimize
people and cause them extreme emotional distress. Victims who have been stalked can feel
humiliated and often feel like no one understands what they are going through. A feeling like
that can often make it very difficult for the victims to seek legal action. Most of the time a
victim will change their phone number, move to a different neighborhood or even city, and
sometimes they may even quit their job because they no longer feel safe at work (Abrams, 2002).
There have even been cases where employers have fired employees who have been
stalked because the victims will no longer show up to work because they are afraid that their
stalker will show up and harass them. Victims also will avoid going to familiar places because
of the chance they may run into their stalker. Another consequence that victims may face is that
they will lose the people they are close to because they isolate themselves from the rest of the
world. Most of the time just getting a restraining order is not enough to get the stalker to leave
their victim alone (Abrams, 2002).
The article also showed a case study where a women, Ms. K was being stalked by her ex,
Mr. A. When Ms. K met Mr. A it was like a fairytale everything was going so well until Mr. A
failed a drug test, but even then Ms. K believed his story about being set up. After two years of
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dating Ms. K ended the relationship because Mr. A was being to show signs of obsession and
started to become paranoid. Even after she ended the relationship Mr. A would still confess his
“love” to her. (Abrams, 2002). Even after she filed two restraining orders against him he still
continued to stalk her. Ms. K lost most of friends because she did not want them to know what
was going on. Ms. K eventually lost her job because she was unable to attend work because she
feared that Mr. A would show up and harass her. This case study proved that victims of stalking
can often lose their job because they cannot deal with consequences of developing anxiety from
being stalked (Abrams, 2002).
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Reference Page
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Duntley, J., & Buss, D. (2012). The Evolution of Stalking. Sex Roles, 66(5/6), 311-327.
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