by It’s official. Stalking is the new, national, pastime in America.
By the tens of thousands, victims of stalking lose their jobs, flee their homes and fear for their safety, according to a new federal survey providing the most comprehensive data ever on a crime affecting an estimated 3.4 million Americans a year. About 11 percent of the victims said they had been stalked for five or more years, and one in seven said the stalking compelled them to move out of their home, according to the report by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. It covered a 12-month period in 2005-06.
The study was described as a groundbreaking effort to analyze the scope and varying forms of stalking, which had not been featured in previous versions of the National Crime Victimization Survey. The number of victims was up sharply from a more limited 1995-96 study commissioned by the Justice Department that estimated 1.4 million Americans a year were targeted by stalkers.
In the span between the two surveys, e-mail and text-messaging emerged as common tactics for stalkers. The Bureau of Justice Statistics defined stalking as a course of conduct, directed at a specific person on at least two separate occasions, that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear. The most commonly reported types of stalking were unwanted phone calls (66 percent), unsolicited letters or e-mail (31 percent), or having rumors spread about the victim (36 percent).
What’s the thrill for these stalkers?
Are they just shameless and bored and rejected — or do they find a sexual pleasure in the attempt to terrify and harass the objects of their derision/affection/obsession?
Is stalking a gender neutral thing or are more women stalked than men? (Or more men than women?) It doesn’t seem to indicate that information anywhere.
I simply don’t get this phenomenon David – is it based on revenge, hope, despair…? What is it?
That is really creepy.
I have come across some instances of stalking and it has been the woman scorned stalking/harassing her replacement in a relationship.
The usual format is to follow the other woman around the internet and into forums and generally slagging them off where they can.
It is horrible to see.
Real life the only examples I know are of men stalking women they are fixated with – luckily we have a neat piece of paper called a “restraining order” which we can obtain through the courts.
If you click-through to read the article, Gordon, you’ll see women are stalked twice as often as men.
That’s what I want to know, Katha!
It is a disturbing phenomenon, Nicola. I find it especially strange when a man stalks another man online — because the gender power and dynamics are so oddly out-of-skew as the line between love and hate and admiration blurs in really strange and homoerotic ways.