The Crime of Stalking
Caution: This page is
intended for educational purposes only.
Before implementing any
intervention, it is important to have an experienced
threat management team perform a risk assessment, as each
stalking situation is unique.
Please also review our 5
day Anti-Stalker
Protection Training Course. This course is applicable
to Security Professionals, Law Enforcement Officers and
Victims of Stalking.
About
Stalkers and Stalking
A recent
study by the National Institute of Justice found that
stalking was far more prevalent than anyone had imagined:
8% of American women and 2% of American men will be
stalked in their lifetimes. That’s 1.4 million American
stalking victims every year. The majority of stalkers have
been in relationships with their victims, but a
significant percentage either never met their victims, or
were just acquaintances - neighbors, friends or
co-workers.
Types of
Stalkers
There is
tremendous confusion in the stalking research literature
about how to classify stalkers. Everyone uses different
terms. For the purposes of this web site, we have broken
down types of stalkers into three broad categories:
Intimate partner stalkers, delusional stalkers and
vengeful stalkers. Obviously, there is overlap. Since
studies show that the overwhelming number of stalkers are
men and the overwhelming number of their victims are
women, we will be referring to stalkers and their victims
accordingly. The excellent book I Know You Really Love Me,
by Doreen Orion MD, delves into
much greater detail and provides extensive case histories
about each of these types of stalkers.
Intimate
partner stalkers are typically known as the guy who
"just can’t let go." These are most often men
who refuse to believe that a relationship has really
ended. Often, other people - even the victims - feel sorry
for them. But they shouldn’t. Studies show that the vast
majority of these stalkers are not sympathetic, lonely
people who are still hopelessly in love, but were in fact
emotionally abusive and controlling during the
relationship. Many have criminal histories unrelated to
stalking. Well over half of stalkers fall into this
"former intimate partner" category.
In these
types of stalking cases, the victim may, in fact,
unwittingly encourage the stalker by trying to "let
him down easy," or agreeing to talk to him "just
one more time." What victims need to understand is
that there is no reasoning with stalkers. Just the fact
that stalking - an unreasonable activity - has already
begun, illustrates this fact. When the victim says,
"I don’t want a relationship now," the stalker
hears, "She’ll want me again, tomorrow." When
she says, "I just need some space," he hears,
"If I just let her go out with her friends, she’ll
come back." "It’s just not working out,"
is heard as "we can make it work out." In other
words, the only thing to say to the stalker is
"no." No explanations, no time limits, no room
to maneuver.
A victim
should say "no" once and only once. And then,
never say anything to him again. If a stalker can’t have
his victim’s love, he’ll take her hatred or her fear.
The worst thing in the world for him is to be ignored.
Think of little children: If they’re not getting the
attention they want, they’ll act out and misbehave
because even negative attention is better than none at
all. Former intimate partner stalkers have their entire
sense of self-worth caught up in the fact that, "she
loves me." Therefore, any evidence to the contrary is
seen as merely an inconvenience to overcome. Since giving
up his victim means giving up his self-worth, he is very
unlikely to do so. Don’t help him hang on.
Delusional
stalkers frequently have had little, if any, contact with
their victims. They may have major mental illnesses like
schizophrenia, manic-depression or erotomania. What they
all have in common is some false belief that keeps them
tied to their victims. In erotomania, the stalker’s
delusional belief is that the victim loves him. This type
of stalker actually believes that he is having a
relationship with his victim, even though they might never
have met. The woman stalking David Letterman, the stalker
who killed actress Rebecca Schaeffer and the man who
stalked Madonna are all examples of erotomanic stalkers.
Another
type of delusional stalker might believe that he is
destined to be with someone, and that if he only pursues
her hard enough and long enough, she will come to love him
as he loves her. These stalkers know they are not having a
relationship with their victims, but firmly believe that
they will some day. John Hinckley Jr.’s obsession with
Jodi Foster is an example of this type of stalker.
The typical
profile of delusional stalkers is that of an unmarried and
socially immature loner, who is unable to establish or
sustain close relationships with others. They rarely date
and have had few, if any, sexual relationships. Since at
the same time they are both threatened by and yearn for
closeness, they often pick victims who are unattainable in
some way; perhaps she is married, or has been the
stalker’s therapist, clergyman, doctor or teacher. Those
in the helping professions are particularly vulnerable to
delusional stalkers, because for someone who already has
difficulty separating reality from fantasy, the kindness
shown by the soon-to-be victim, the only person who has
ever treated the stalker with warmth, is blown out of
proportion into a delusion of intimacy. What these
stalkers cannot attain in reality is achieved through
fantasy and it is for this reason that the delusion seems
to be so difficult to relinquish: Even an imaginary love
is better than no love at all.
These
delusional stalkers have almost always come from a
background which was either emotionally barren or severely
abusive. They grow up having a very poor sense of their
own identities. This, coupled with a predisposition toward
psychosis, leads them to strive for satisfaction through
another, yearning to merge with someone who is almost
always perceived to be of a higher status (doctors,
lawyers, teachers) or very socially desirable
(celebrities). It is as if this stalker says, "Gee.
If she loves me, I must not be so bad." As Dean
Martin compellingly crooned what could be considered the
delusional stalker’s anthem: "You’re Nobody
‘Til Somebody Loves You." It is not unusual for
this type of stalker to "hear" the soothing
voice of his victim, or believe that she is sending him
cryptic messages through others.
Some
studies show that delusional stalkers are the most
tenacious of all. Erotomanic delusions themselves last an
average of ten years. How is this possible when the
stalker has had little if any contact with his victim? As
if drawn from the National Organ Donor Registry, the
victim becomes the perfect match, with the potential to
save the stalker’s life. When the victim says
"no," he rationalizes it away, believing that,
"her husband made her get that restraining order, she
really loves me," or "her agent told her it
would be bad for her career if we dated, but she really
loves me." Therefore, as with every type of stalker,
it is imperative that victims have no contact.
The final
category of stalker is not lovelorn. He is the vengeful
stalker. These stalkers become angry with their victims
over some slight, real or imagined. Politicians, for
example, get many of these types of stalkers who become
angry over some piece of legislation or program the
official sponsors. But, disgruntled ex-employees can also
stalk, whether targeting their former bosses, co-workers
or the entire company. Some of these angry stalkers are
psychopaths, i.e. people without conscience or remorse.
Some are delusional, (most often paranoid), and believe
that they, in fact, are the victims. They all stalk to
"get even."
Former
intimate partner stalkers and delusional stalkers can
become vengeful for a variety of reasons. For example,
when their victims get restraining orders, or marry. Why a
stalker’s anger is a very bad sign is described under what
to do.
In general,
for any type of stalker, the less of a relationship that
actually existed prior to the stalking, the more mentally
disturbed the stalker.
What to Do
If You Become
a Stalking Victim
Introduction
If you
become a victim of a stalker you must, above all, educate
yourself. There are several national organizations that
provide information on stalking. These are listed on our resources
page. Keep tuned in to our upcoming educational events
page, as well, for continually updated information.
Security
Precautions for Stalking Victims
Stalking
victims don’t like to be called victims. They will say,
"I won’t let myself be victimized," or
"I’m not going to change my life because I’m
being stalked." Sorry. Your life has changed.
Forever. And unless you accept that, you will actually be
helping the stalker. You are a crime victim. The crime
happens to be stalking. You must understand that the
phrase "stalking victim" says volumes about the
perpetrator, but nothing about you. It does not tell us
whether you stay at home in terror with sheets over the
windows, or whether you’ve decided to move, or to become
active to change the laws in your state. On the other
hand, accepting that you are a stalking victim serves to
remind you that you must, from now on, take extra
precautions that others do not have to take.
Here are
some basics to start with. These and other safety
precautions can be found in I Know You Really Love Me:
- Tell the
stalker "no" once and only once, and then
never give him the satisfaction of a reaction again.
The more you respond, the more you teach him that his
actions will elicit a response. This only serves to
reinforce the stalking.
- Get a
dog. The Los Angeles Police Department’s Threat
Management Unit says this is "one of the least
expensive but most effective alarm systems."
- Block
your address at DMV and Voter Registration. If you
don’t, anyone can get it for the asking. This
is how Robert Bardo found actress Rebecca Schaeffer
and was able to murder her at her front door.
- Never
give out your home address or telephone number. Get a
post office box and use it on all correspondence. For
those places that will not accept a post office box,
change "PO Box" to "Apt." and
leave the number. Put this address on your checks.
- When the
stalker gets your home telephone number, don’t
change it. Instead, always let an answering machine
pick-up. Get a new, unlisted number, and give it to
everyone who calls but the stalker. Gradually, only
your stalker will be using your old number – it will
become his private line. If it upsets you when he
calls, put the machine in a room you don’t use. You
can even have someone else monitor the tapes. This
way, the stalker will think he is still getting
through to you, although you will never make the
mistake of picking up when he calls. Whenever you
close off one avenue for a stalker, he will find
another and it could easily be worse.
- Document
everything. Even if you have decided not to go the
legal route, you may change your mind. Keep answering
machine tapes, letters, gifts, etc. Keep a log of
drive-bys or any suspicious occurrences.
- Take a
self-defense class. A lot of security experts don’t
advise this, fearing that it gives victims a false
sense of security, but we do. The best self-defense
classes teach you how to become more aware of your
surroundings and avoid confrontations, things that
stalking victims would do well to learn.
- Have
co-workers screen all calls and visitors.
- Don’t
accept packages unless they were personally ordered.
- Remove
any name or identification from reserved parking at
work.
- Destroy
discarded mail.
- Equip
your gas tank with a locking gas cap that can be
unlocked only from inside the car.
- Get a
cell phone and keep it with you at all times, even
inside your home, in case the stalker cuts your phone
lines.
- If you
think you are being followed while in your car, make
four left- or right-hand turns in succession. If the
car continues to follow you, drive to the nearest
police station, never home or to a friend’s
house.
- Never be
afraid to sound your car horn to attract attention.
- Acquaint
yourself with all-night stores and other public,
highly populated places in your area.
- Consider
moving if your case warrants it. No, it’s not fair,
but nothing is fair about stalking. If you stay and
fight through the legal system, you might get some
justice, (although not necessarily your definition of
it), but you almost certainly won’t get safety:
There is no possibility of life imprisonment for
stalkers. Research how to keep your destination
secret. Stalking and victims’ organizations can
help.
- Don’t
be embarrassed and think you caused this somehow.
Stalkers need no encouragement. Your shame is your
stalker’s best weapon. It makes you more likely to
engage him or agree to plea bargains, which are bound
to be taken as sympathy and we know where that leads.
Instead, tell everyone you know that you’re being
stalked, from neighbors to co-workers, so that when
the stalker approaches them for information about you,
they will be alerted not to divulge anything and will
let you know he’s been around. One young widow moved
to escape her stalker, a stranger she had never really
met. Yet, after finding out where she moved, he was
also able to pinpoint her exact location by showing
her helpful neighbors pictures he had surreptitiously
taken of her and her children, telling them that he
was her estranged husband and she had kidnapped the
kids.
- Join one
of the stalking victims’ support groups that are
springing up all over the country. They can be
invaluable resources for information in your community
(such as how local law enforcement handle these cases)
as well as provide essential support. See the resources
section for organizations that can help. If there
is no group in your area, start one. It only takes
two. Tragically, we can guarantee you are not the only
person being stalked in your area.
Restraining
Orders
Many
stalking victims are routinely told to get restraining
orders. When they do, they often assume that the stalking
will finally end, either because the stalker will stop on
his own, or because the police will stop him. Neither of
these outcomes happens with any frequency.
About a
quarter of stalking victims obtain restraining orders; in
two-thirds of these cases, the restraining order is
violated. About half of all stalking cases are reported to
the police; a quarter of these result in an arrest.
Remember
that a restraining order is just a piece of paper. It
cannot protect you. In fact, the restraining order is just
a tool police use to show intent by the perpetrator.
Obviously, the police will not be there when the
perpetrator violates. Only after.
In many,
many instances, restraining orders only make a bad
situation worse. From the stalker’s point of view,
restraining orders are humiliating; the victim has just
announced to the world that she wants nothing to do with
him: She has stepped-up the rejection. Because of this,
many perpetrators feel they must step-up the pursuit. Or
they just get mad and plan to get even. There have been
far too many cases of stalking victims found murdered
after they had obtained restraining orders; one victim’s
estranged husband knifed the order to her chest.
There are
two types of stalkers that are most unlikely to respond to
restraining orders: those former intimate-partner stalkers
who are very invested in the relationship and delusional
stalkers.
Former
intimate partner stalkers are less likely to adhere to a
restraining order the more they have invested in the
victim. For example, a man who was married to a woman for
ten years and had three children with her, follows her
around until she gets a restraining order. The same man, a
year later, dates another woman a few times until she
becomes concerned about how controlling he is and breaks
it off. In which scenario will the same man be more likely
to let go: In the former instance, in which he has ten
years and three kids invested, or the latter in which he
has only invested a few dates?
Delusional
stalkers, by definition, cannot be reasoned with. They
just don’t get it and never will. A judge saying the
same thing the victim did, "stay away," makes no
difference. These types of stalkers have even been known
to call their victims - collect from jail. Since in most
cases the victim hardly knows the stalker, if at all, it
might seem that these stalkers have nothing invested in
the relationship. Remember, however, that in their minds,
they have created an entire relationship with the power to
completely transform their lonely lives. A piece of paper
carrying some paltry penalty for a violation is hardly
going to be a deterrent. A victim may assume that her
stalker will respond to a restraining order the way she
herself would. Such an assumption is, at best, terribly
foolish; at worst, deadly.
An
erotomanic woman stalked a department store manager who
had the misfortune of smiling in her direction. She was so
relentless in her pursuit that he was eventually forced to
leave the country. Here is what she wrote to the man she
had never, in reality, met: "My dearest beloved…I
cannot live without you. You are God of God and I depend
upon your kindly help to save me from this hospital. Your
high learning and important status are your two most
admirable qualities. Your wise breeding will make a
perfect lady out of me and in you is all I need to find
security in my life." How can 30 days, 6 months, even
a year in jail put a dent in these sentiments and their
resulting pursuit?
Does this
mean that a stalking victim should not obtain a
restraining order? No. It does mean, however, that a
stalking victim should not obtain one routinely. Before a
victim obtains a restraining order, she must
research how these orders are enforced in her jurisdiction
in similar cases. Seek out other stalking victims, through
support groups, domestic violence programs, etc. and ask
them. Find out if a restraining order violation is a
misdemeanor (as it is in most jurisdictions) or a felony.
If it is a misdemeanor, it is much less likely to be
enforced. When is the last time you heard of someone being
arrested for spitting, littering or loitering? The police
will almost always tell you they will arrest. Find out if
this means taking the stalker to jail or just giving him a
citation.
When a
restraining order violation occurs and the police just go
out and talk to the stalker or even give him a citation,
they have just made the situation worse. The victim would
have been far better off never obtaining such an order.
What the police have done in this instance is given the
stalker further proof that nothing will happen to him,
that he can act with impunity. After all, what more can
the victim do to him than call in the full weight of the
legal system; first a judge to issue the order and a
police officer to enforce it?
Stalker
Violence
There are
cases in which stalking lasts for years and years and
never turns violent. Then, there are those cases that turn
deadly quickly. How can you tell which cases will lead to
murder?
First of
all, the cases that seem harmless, may, in fact, be the
most deadly. An Australian singer was stalked by an
erotomanic man who went to all her performances and even
followed her to social events. When her friends expressed
their concerns to the young woman, she told them he was
simply sad and harmless. There was no warning before he
finally did approach her in the street, fatally stabbing
her. Weeks before, he had confided to his mother that he
was going to marry the singer. What changed his plans from
marriage to murder? A newspaper article reporting her
engagement to a prominent local businessman. He felt
humiliated at her "betrayal" and decided to
"get even."
Most
stalking victims erroneously believe that if they have not
been threatened, they are not in any danger. Here’s a
question, then: If he really wanted to harm you, why would
he warn you ahead of time? Conversely, think about the
many, many times in your own life that you threatened
someone and then didn’t follow through on the threat.
Never happened? What about that jerk who cut you off on
the highway last week? Didn’t you threaten to – well,
never mind. The point is, study after study indicates that
whether or not a stalker makes a threat has no bearing on
whether or not he poses a threat. Of course, any threat
should be taken seriously. But there are other indicators
that cannot be ignored when assessing a stalker’s
potential for violence.
Additionally,
it is a false belief that if a perpetrator has no history
of violence, the likelihood of his becoming violent in the
future is small. John Hinckley, Jr., Lynette
"Squeaky" Fromme, Sarah Jane Moore, Lee Harvey
Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and John Wilkes Booth, never
perpetrated an act of criminal violence on another person
before the attacks that made them famous. That is also
true of the most recent celebrity stalker-murderers,
Robert Bardo, who killed Rebecca Schaefer, and Mark David
Chapman, who killed John Lennon. While a past history of
violence, therefore, is an important factor in increasing
the risk of future violence, the absence of such a history
is completely meaningless. After all, a history of
violence is notably lacking before the first time anyone
perpetrates a violent act.
Factors
which studies show seem to increase stalker propensity for
violence are: stalking more than one victim, a past
criminal history unrelated to stalking, substance abuse,
access to and knowledge of weapons, high degree of
obsession with the victim, great length of time stalking
the victim, travelling a distance to be near the victim.
Male sex is usually added to this list because, in
general, men are more violent than women. However, a
recent study found that, at least for former intimate
partner stalkers, women stalkers were just as likely to
become violent as their male counterparts.
It is also
important to understand that it is not only the victim who
is in danger, but those surrounding the victim,
particularly if the stalker perceives them to be in his
way. Madonna’s stalker tried to kill her body guard
because he was seen as an obstacle to the star. Peggy
Lennon’s stalker (from the singing Lennon Sisters on the
Lawrence Welk Show) hunted her father down and shot him to
death, believing he was an obstacle to being with Peggy,
whom he called, "my true wife."
The material on this page is excerpted from the Anti-Stalking
Web Site. Please visit that site for more resources
and information on the crime of stalking. |
