Stalking Laws and Implementation Practices
Stalking is a crime of terror. It is one part threat and one part waiting for the threat to be carried out. The victim of stalking has no way to resolve the threat and terror she feels. (Most revoked cases involve male stalkers and female victims.) Stalking is also far more common than most people believe, including criminal justice professionals. Together, these two points underscore the reality that stalking is an important policy issue for the criminal justice system, for agencies providing services to victims of crime, and for advocates concerned about violence against women.
Stalking has, of course, gathered considerable attention from the mass media. However, notwithstanding a sizable literature about stalking as a legal construct and as a medical issue, - - systematic information about this crime and what is being done about it is largely missing. Most significantly, policy analysis of what needs to be done to improve anti-stalking investigation, prosecution, and provision of services to stalking victims is totally absent.
- To fill those gaps in knowledge, this study of the status of stalking laws and their implementation in the United States was conducted.' The study:
- Analyzed stalking and related legislation in the 50 states,
- Reviewed leading court decisions interpreting those laws,
- Conducted a survey of police and prosecutor agencies across the country to determine how the laws are being implemented,
- Undertook field reviews in jurisdictions with innovative, special anti-stalking efforts, and
- Integrated study findings with the existing research literature on stalkers and their behavior.
The premise for the research was that stalking is a serious crime against persons2 and is widely prevalent.While there has been significant federal support for state and local agencies to adopt anti-stalking laws and implement anti-stalking initiatives: no comprehensive review of the status of such efforts had been done. Thus, there was no way of knowing what additional measures (such as federal assistance to state and local enforcement agencies, or new initiatives by state and local agencies themselves) might be needed to enhance local anti-stalking efforts.
