NCJ Number
217173
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Dated: January-February 2007 Pages: 64-86
Date Published
January 2007
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This paper takes stock of the emerging research which represents the state-of-the-art of social scientific knowledge of stalking, as well as its close relations, obsessive relational intrusion and the unwanted pursuit of intimacy.
Abstract
Overall, an average of 25 percent of samples across 58 studies reported stalking victimization, with each episode lasting an average of 22 months. Females are more likely to be victims than males with between 60 and 80 percent of victims being females. Across 54 studies of stalking cases some use of threat was revealed. Across 82 studies, 32 percent of stalking cases involved physical violence and 12 percent involved sexual violence. It was clear that stalking emerged most commonly from preexisting relationships: 70 percent of victims were acquainted with their stalker and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships. Over a decade-and-a-half has passed since the act of stalking was criminalized. Social scientific research has often been at the forefront of setting social policy. In the case of stalking, relevant forms of behavior have been studied, such as coercion and threats, harassment and intimidation, hyper-intimacy, mediated contacts, interactional contacts, surveillance, invasion, and aggression. Once investigations and studies began, progress was substantial and rapid. This paper examines or reviews the research currently representing the social scientific knowledge of stalking, as well as its close cousins, obsessive relational intrusion and the unwanted pursuit of intimacy. The paper reports on a meta-analysis of 175 studies of stalking with descriptive estimates of prevalence, gender differences, relationship origins, motives, threat and violence provided. Tables, references