National Stalking Awareness Month

  • Jan, 31, 2024
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Know It. Name It. Stop It.


January is National Stalking Awareness Month. Stalking is often portrayed in media as a hooded, black-cladded individual following a person at night. The trope of the “secret admirer” love-bombing the victim and sending dangerous, threatening messages. While these may happen, these depictions of stalking are rare and largely misrepresents the dangers of stalking. That obviously leads to the question, what is stalking?

Stalking is a willful pattern of behavior, directed at a specific person, that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear, threatened, and terrorized, and have been so. Stalking is a federal crime: punishable in all 50 states, U.S. territories, and military installations. Depending on the state, the offense may be a misdemeanor or a felony. In Michigan, stalking is generally a misdemeanor.

SLII Strategies used by stalkers include Surveillance (examples include: watching, following, and gathering information), live invasion (examples include: showing up in the victim's life unwelcomed and uninvited), interference (examples include: sabotaging, attacking, and/or changing the victim's life), and intimidation (examples include: threatening and/or scaring the victim)

Fig.2: SLII Strategies

Stalking is an attributable behavior. Ringing a doorbell or sending flowers isn’t illegal or stalking, but done with the purpose, directed at a specific person, which causes a reasonable person to feel fear, is stalking.

Behaviors and actions taken by stalkers typically fall into 4 categories. Most stalking overlap and occur concurrently. These tactics are called the "SLII Strategies": surveillance, live invasion, interference, and intimidation. Examples of these tactics can be seen in Fig.2.

Victims of stalkers are unlikely to actually use the word “stalk”. They describe the behavior as “scary” or leaves them feeling “afraid” or “threatened”. Listen for these behaviors!

 

As stated in The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey (Smith, Basile, Kresnow 2022), nearly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men (Fig.2) reported stalking victimization at some point in their life. Furthermore, 1 in 15 women and 1 in 24 men reported stalking in the past twelve months at the time of the survey.

Fig.3

Fig.2

Across the board, women are more likely to be stalked. Men are more likely to be stalkers, regardless of the gender of the victim. Another misconception is that the stalker is a stranger, following the victim from afar. Rather, between 40% to 45% of stalkers are acquaintances or current/former partners (Fig.3).
This is true for male and female victims.

It is not your fault as a victim, nor as a bystander. It is the stalker who must take accountability for their actions against another. This does not mean that the victim, nor bystander is helpless to the whims of the stalker.

The bystander effect is real, and should not be overshadowed in the discussion of how to stop stalking.

Don’t Downplay or Minimize

Acknowledge the behaviors for what it really is: “It is stalking”

Believe the victim when they say they’re being stalked.

Documentation!

Help the victim to document the events: time, place, location, witnesses, and evidence

Take note of instances you see yourself as well

Learn more about Stalking Awareness.

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