NCJ Number
213276
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 21 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2006 Pages: 49-66
Date Published
February 2006
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This study examined the perceptions of urban and rural victim services and justice system professionals regarding appropriate and effective responses to stalking victims.
Abstract
Overall the results indicated that victim service professionals viewed intimate partner violence as more serious than the justice system professionals. However, more than three fourths of both victim service and justice professionals believed that abused women also often experienced stalking by the same partner. Yet, 24 percent of victim service professionals and 37 percent of justice system professionals believed that the woman would not identify her partner’s behavior as stalking. Approximately half of both sets of professionals believed that there should be different resources and strategies for responding to stalking behavior. Differences between rural and urban professionals were most pronounced among the rural professionals. Rural justice professionals used significantly more references to the use and accessibility of the criminal justice system than rural victim service professionals. The findings suggest the need for victim and justice system service representatives to include education about stalking into their education and safety programming for both women and for their own personnel. Interviews were conducted with 38 urban and 114 rural informants from July to October 2003. Interviews focused on their perceptions of, and responses to, stalking and more generally, intimate partner violence. SPSS computer software was used to analyze interview data. Future research should focus on professionals’ perceptions of appropriate intervention strategies within the context of local resources and State laws. Tables, references