Stalking (2007)

In March 2006, the Manhattan media gossip blog, Gawker, came under fire for launching Gawker Stalker. People use their mobile phones or PDAs to submit sightings and locations of celebrities going about their daily business. After a fifteen minute time delay, they are uploaded onto the Gawker Stalker site using Google Maps so that readers can see where these celebrities are. Security fears abounded regarding the safety of celebrities being stalked by crazed fans. If someone is sat in a restaurant having lunch or in the park playing with their children, chances are that they will still be there fifteen minutes later.

Stalking is a crime that does not only affect celebrities. It can have the same effects on the victim, whether you have all of Manhattan watching and documenting your every move or one person in your home, office or neighbourhood watching you.

In 2003 an estimated 1.2 million women were subjected to stalking (EVAW website, Walby & Allen, BCS 2002, 2004). A 2005 study conducted by the Universityof Leicester supported by the Network for Surviving Stalking found that 86% of victims were women. Half of their sample had a prior intimate relationship with the person who became their stalker and a further one third had been previously acquainted with the stalker, either as a friend of a friend or through school or work. Only 10% of stalkers were total strangers to their victims when they started stalking them.

The effects of stalking on their victims is profound. 92% of the sample reported physical effects, including injuries from rape and physical assaults. 98% reported emotional effects such as paranoia, disrupted sleep patterns and post-traumatic stress.

Stalking also affects those closest to the victim. One third of victims had to relocate, or had lost their jobs or relationships. The study found that on average there are 21 people affected in the stalking of one victim; these include the victim's children, neighbours, work colleagues and other family members.

In the UK, stalkers can be prosecuted under various laws for different activities relating to stalking, primarily under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 makes 'collective harassment' i.e. aiding, abetting or procuring harassment, a criminal offence.

Under the Telecommunications Act 1984 it is an offence to use public telecommunications to send a message 'which is grossly offensive or of an obscene or menacing character'. Under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 it is an offence to send letters that contain 'threats the purpose of which is to cause distress or anxiety'.

Employers also have a duty of care to protect their employees from harassment. Stalkers can also be sanctioned under the organisation's domestic violence or IT policies for using the company's resources to harass their victims or for harassing their victims during work hours.

The growing prevalence of the availability and use of mobile communication devices has led to the rise of cyberstalking. Stalkers no longer have to hang around outside their victim's home or workplace; instead, they can harass them remotely and without being seen. Mobile phones and in boxes are bombarded with sexually explicit or threatening messages, or sexually explicit videos or photographs are posted online or sent to colleagues or family members without the victim's prior knowledge or consent. This can be facilitated using social networking sites. GPS tracking devices on vehicles and mobile phones mean that stalkers can track their movements at any given moment.

Laws are struggling to keep up with this new phenomenon, although progress has been made across the globe. In 2003 Australia saw its first laws around cyber stalking. In 2001 a court in Hong Kong prosecuted its first cyberstalker for one year, a 23 year old man that had used a free e-mail account to send explicit e-mails contain threats of rape to two women over a nine month period.

ORGANISATIONS & WEBSITES

The Network for Surviving Stalking

http://www.nss.org.uk/

BBC - Stalking Help & Advice

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series7/stalking_advice.shtml

Stalking Resource Centre - National Centre for Victims of Crime

http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_Federal_Interstate_Stalking_Institute163

POLICY & REPORTS

Stalking: an investigators guide

Hamish Brown, MPS 2000

Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey 2002 (PDF, 564, kb)
Sylvia Walby & Jonathan Allen, Home Office 2004

Research into the existing criminal and civil law procedures and practices in relation to stalking and harassment (PDF, 587kb)
Robert Gordon University for the Scottish Government 2002