Replication Study of Obsessional Followers and Offenders with Mental Disorders

• NCJ Number: 181766
• Journal: Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 45 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2000 Pages: 147-160
• Author(s): J. Reid Meloy Ph.D.; Lynette Rivers Ph.D.; Liza Siegel Ph.D.; Shayna Gothard Ph.D.; David Naimark M.D.; J. Reese Nicolini Ph.D.
• Date Published: January 2000
• Length: 14 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study compared certain demographic, clinical, and criminal variables in subgroups of obsessional stalkers in San Diego County (Calif.) and compared them to a group of offenders with mental disorders to try to replicate earlier findings.

Abstract

The research used a static-group archival design and 65 obsessional followers and 65 offenders with mental disorders, taken from the case files of approximately 2,300 adults whom the Superior Court of San Diego County referred between January 1994 and June 1996 for a forensic evaluation. The obsessional followers were measured on demographic, diagnostic, pursuit, victim, threat, violence, emotional, motivational, and defense variables. Inferential comparisons that used parametric and non-parametric statistics were done within and between groups on selected variables. The obsessional followers had significantly greater estimated IQ than the offenders with mental disorders, but were neither older nor better educated. No significant differences existed in the high prevalence of both DSM-IV Axis I and II diagnoses. Obsessional followers who stalked prior sexual intimates were significantly more likely than the others to have a diagnosis of drug abuse or drug dependence. Obsessional followers who stalked strangers or acquaintances were more likely to be delusional. The majority of the obsessional followers, motivated primarily by anger, and both threatened and were violent toward person or property. The modal obsessional follower had an average or above-average IQ and was an unemployed, unmarried male in his fourth decade of life, chronically pursuing a female with whom he had been sexually intimate. He was a drug abuser or drug dependent; had a personality disorder; and had a prior psychiatric, criminal, and drug abuse history. He was angry and likely to threaten the woman and assault her person or property without causing serious injury. Tables and 30 references (Author abstract modified)