What Is Stalking?

“I took Model Mugging when a stalker followed me from one city to another and moved into my new apartment building. I needed to learn the skills to defend myself and the fighting spirit—that I am worth protecting. Model Mugging empowered me to feel, and be, safe anywhere. There is no monetary value I can put on the feeling of being safe, wherever I am. Now, I will always fight to protect myself.”

NYC Graduate, Louise 

Stalling definitions may vary from one jurisdiction to another. Stalking is usually described as anyone who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows or harasses another person and who has the ability to carry out any credible threats that intentionally make that person or that person’s immediate family in fear for their safety. The elements must be present during a police investigation for the prosecution to proceed.

This conduct of stalking is defined as a pattern of behavior composed of a series of acts over time, however short, but with an intended purpose of harassment and intimidation.

Hunting: The act of stalking is used to describe a technique of hunting whereby stalking may be a single act or an instance describing a predator hunting its prey. Similarly, a criminal may follow another person by stealth, which would apply more to hunters and even rapists who identify a victim’s daily patterns and then either lie in wait for her arrival or approaches her when he knows she is alone and isolated.

Contemporary descriptions of stalking have unique characteristics. Unlike most crimes, which consist of a single act or time period, stalking is usually a crime of relationship that involves multiple or continuous acts of repeated victimization. This means there has been some form of relationship between the victim and the stalker, even if the relationship exists only in the stalker’s mind.

Violence Against Women Grants Office (1997) defined stalking as a course of conduct and a collection of multiple but individual acts. It is not an incident but rather an ongoing process of incidents that span months and years.[1]

Black’s Law Dictionary (2012) describes stalking as: “The offense of following or loitering near another, often surreptitiously, to annoy or harass that person or to commit a further crime such as assault or battery. Statutory (legislative law) definitions include an element that the person being stalked must reasonably feel harassed, alarmed, or distressed about personal safety or the safety of one or more persons for whom that person is responsible.”

Stalking Methods

Stalking methods include telephoning, leaving notes or other items, loitering, cyberstalking (using text messaging, emailing, computer or account hacking), damaging property, stealing mail, burglary, making threats, or having others do the same, with the overall perceived purpose of intimidating, harassing, or harming. Stalking behavior can take many forms.

Stalking, like rape and intimate partner abuse, is not new to threatening interpersonal conduct. However, it was the stalking and killing of celebrities that brought this frightening issue to media attention and public concern. In 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot and killed. Actress Rebecca Schaeffer’s death is often cited as prompting the passage of the nation’s first anti-stalking legislation in 1990. After Rebecca Schaeffer was killed, it was apparent that other stalking victims were without recourse. California became the first state to enact an anti-stalking law in the United States. Although all states have stalking laws, the penalties and conditions vary from state to state.

Moreover, most people who are stalked and harassed are not celebrities. The media more often focuses on celebrities being stalked or reports stories involving horrendous stalking homicides. Most stalking incidents involve intimate partners or other acquaintances who continuously cause anxiety in victims for months and even years. Since the stalking publicity in the 1990s, stalking laws have been passed around the world, giving law enforcement more options to assist victims against stalkers.

Stalking can be a terrifying experience for victims and their families. It is an intrusive violation of privacy with the constant fear of potentially being physically harmed or killed or the constant anxiety that the stalker will harm a loved one.

If You Are Stalked

If you are being stalked, you may need to approach the problem with several concurrent methods of threat management that may involve improving physical home security measures, financial protective measures, seeking aid from others, repeated notifications and reminders regarding the threat, personal security measures, self-defense training, counter surveillance, obtaining a restraining order, and counseling or therapy.

Model Mugging Self Defense provides personal self-defense training classes that can assist in addressing the anxiety and fears of the threat to one’s safety through building self-confidence to address the ultimate fear of being harmed.

Learning what one can do physically against a padded assailant can empower stalking victims to take more action to stop and defend against stalking and find peace in their lives.

Visit our other personal safety and crime prevention pages for further techniques and tactics to incorporate into your daily lifestyle and habits that can help guard against stalkers.

 

Stalking Prevention

Stalking prevention begins with understanding the traits and behaviors of abusive personalities and then avoiding contact with these individuals. This is hard for victims to understand, especially for those who are lonely or seduced by the shower of attention. Many victims believe they know better than the advice given by others and have the “power” to change the destructive behavior of abusive individuals. Unfortunately, they will experience severe pain and suffering even if they can separate from their abusers. Their suffering often continues long after the break up of the relationship in the form of victimization from stalking and other crimes.

Model Mugging basic self defense course address the anxiety and fears with options in safety that is carried over to stalking defensive measures. There have been many Model Graduates who were stalking victims and found the skills they learned life changing for dealing with and countering the fear and anxiety that stalkers incite.

Tactics and techniques to deal with stalking will be forthcoming. Subscribe HERE to receive future crime prevention updates.