Stalking

Stalking is a frightening and often frustrating experience for the victim. If you are being stalked, or think you may be, call the Rape Crisis Line at 319.335.6000 for support and information.

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Stalking Defined

Stalking is legally defined as “a repeated course of conduct intended to cause fear of bodily injury or death.” This is commonly used to include following and/or repeated harassment, regardless of intent.

Stalking victims often lose time from work or never return to work, and some even relocate to regain a sense of safety. Many suffer from anxiety, insomnia, and severe depression as a result of being stalked. The vast majority of stalking victims are ordinary people. Furthermore, most stalkers are not strangers, but are known by their victim.

Stalking often begins during a relationship. Stalkers may keep the victim under surveillance or threaten her or him. Others begin stalking after the victim has ended the relationship, and the stalker feels desperate to maintain or regain control. Still others become fixated on a victim without ever having had any relationship with the person.

All forms of stalking are unpredictable, and all should be considered dangerous.

What to Do: Building a Case

Whether or not you wish to file formal charges against a stalker (or are legally able to do so), it is important to think in terms of building a prosecutable case from the very beginning.

“He’s done a million things to me, and I just don’t respond. I know that eventually he’s going to do something to incriminate himself.”
~Stalking Survivor

It is an unfortunately heavy burden, but you as the victim must approach each stalking behavior with the following questions:

Were there any witnesses who will support me?
Is there any evidence that I can physically keep?
If this happens again, is there any way that I can gather evidence next time?
Should I call law enforcement right now to report it?

It is helpful to early on locate a victim advocate in your area to assist you. It is particularly important for victims to seek help from as many people as possible, and to assertively advocate on your own behalf.
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What to Do: Starting with the Facts

Communicate to the stalker that you wish no further contact. Put this communication in writing if possible, and keep a dated copy of it. If you choose to do this by phone, tape the conversation. Once you have made this communication clear, do not initiate any further communication, including taking phone calls or responding to emails, IM's or any other attempt at communication. If your stalker confronts you remind them of your wish to have no contact.

For your safety: If you have a cell phone carry it with you at all times in case you need to call for assisatnce. In many areas cell phones do not have to be 'active' for the 911 function to work, so if you do not have a cell phone borrow an old one from a friend. Also, many domestic violence shelters have donated used cell phones for this specific purpose, call your local DV Center for use of a phone.

Keep a journal. Do your best to remember dates and details. This will become your master list that you will continue to add to as new stalking behaviors occur.
For example., “On September 14, around 3:00 p.m., Joe Stalker drove down my street and parked his car directly across from my house. He stayed there, staring at my house, until 9:00 p.m. that evening. I did not leave my house at all during that time. My neighbor, Ms. Brown, stated to me the next day that she observed him doing this as well.”

Other useful tips to assist the development of a prosecutable case are as follows:

Cross-reference individual reports. If you have filed more than one police report, ask the department to file them together, or make reference in each one to the previous reports. This is especially important in large police departments that maintain a variety of separate units.

If you have filed police reports in separate jurisdictions, make sure that each jurisdiction has copies of the others’ reports. It is imperative that all reports be viewed together as a “pattern of behavior.”

Communicate with law enforcement. If you are awaiting an outcome from a particular officer or detective, feel free to initiate calls yourself and check for updates. You may be helping them if you save them the effort of trying to track you down.

If you can, bring a victim advocate. Do so when you are filing a report. The presence of a third party seems to have a beneficial effect on the filing process.

Get a copy of your state’s stalking law before you ever try to file a report.

Frequently, stalkers are charged with the crime of the moment (aggravated assault, burglary, etc.), rather than the crime of stalking which is based upon an accumulation of events. If the officer has not mentioned stalking, bring it up and ask if he/she believes it is possible to charge the perpetrator with that crime as well.

Report each incident, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Law enforcement can write “incident reports,” rather than filing charges, and these can later help support the overall stalking case (demonstrating a pattern of behavior).

Keep all evidence. No matter how disgusting or offensive, do not throw anything away. Give it to the police. Keep letters, flowers, gifts, and anything else that can be physically collected.

If you are an Internet user and are receiving harassing email messages, contact (or have the police contact) the server from which the harassing mail is coming from.

Do not change your phone number. Instead, install a new unlisted line and keep the old line connected to an answering machine that uses removable cassettes. Give the new number only to those whom you trust the most. If the stalker leaves messages on your machine, remove the cassette, date it, and keep it as evidence.

Tell everyone you are surrounded by on a day-to-day basis that you are being stalked. Describe the stalker and ask them to tell you immediately if they ever see him or her in the vicinity. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and eyewitness reports are critical to breaking down the “he said, she said” dilemma of prosecution.

If you can afford to do so, purchasing or renting a surveillance camera is an excellent way to “stalk the stalker.”

Restraining Orders

The decision to get a restraining order can be very complex for victims of stalking.

Restraining orders can simultaneously increase risk and increase criminal justice protection.

The key to a restraining order’s effectiveness is the willingness of the victim to follow through with reports of violations of that order.

By themselves, restraining orders do little to stop stalking. In a minority of cases (20 to 30 percent), the stalkers have enough fear of the criminal justice system to stop their harassment of the victims.

When a victim has a restraining order, police are often able to make arrests under circumstances in which they previously wouldn’t have been able.

Some victims are concerned that the restraining order might trigger a more violent or serious threat from the stalker. Increasing safety protocols while seeking an order for protection might outweigh the risks involved.

Expecting that a restraining order will be violated, you might wish to consider contacting victim advocates and judicial personnel in your community to investigate how seriously these violations are treated.

Elements of Stalking

Each stalking behavior by itself may or may not be illegal and generally does not constitute the crime of stalking. When these behaviors are viewed together, however, a pattern emerges that serves no other purpose than to annoy, alarm, or terrorize a victim.

Shower the victim with presents – They can be extremely generous, e.g., paying doctor bills, rent, car repair, etc. These displays of generosity can later be used as ammunition or proof of “all I’ve done for you.”

Guilt trips - The stalker has raised the concept of guilt to a fine art. They are capable of saying whatever is necessary to make the victim feel bad enough to comply with their wishes.

Blackmail - Anything they might know about the victim that can be embarrassing or construed as improper in any way will be used against them. If there are no skeletons in your closet, the stalker might simply make something up.

Promising this will be the last time they bother you – Stalking victims are often so anxious to be left alone that they will agree to see the stalker “one last time.”

Wild accusations – Stalkers find out what makes their victims feel most vulnerable and what they are most sensitive about. They can take this knowledge and exploit it.

Turn the victim’s words around to support their contentions – If the victim has ever said anything affectionate or supportive to the stalker in the past, those words will likely come back to haunt them. “You said you’d always love me.” “I know this is not you talking, your family has turned you against me.”

Charms others into being their accomplice – A stalker can be very charming, persistent, and works hard at befriending people in the victim’s support system. If they are successful in reframing the “relationship,” well-intentioned friends and family may actually help the stalker “reunite” with the victim.

Act seemingly rational, while goading the victim into looking hysterical – If the stalker uses subtle threats, and benign overtures, it is easy to see why the victim appears to be over-reacting.

Cyber-Stalking

Cyber-Stalking is one of the newest ways to stalk and harass people. With the increased ease for access to a computer, almost anyone can be a victim of cyber-stalking. Cyber-stalking can take many forms including:

unsolicited e-mails
harassing messages in live chat rooms, message boards and online communities
spamming
computer tracing and activity monitoring
identity theft
inapropriate messages in guest books and message boards

Cyber-stalking has often escalated and moved beyond the computer, with victims facing harassing phone calls, vandalism, trespassing and assault. Currently cyber-stalking has only been addressed in the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, but there has yet to be a federal law prohibiting it. Several states have passed measures making it illegal to use online communications as a form of harassment, but not all states have done this.

There are several things that you should do if you bellieve you are a victim of cyber-stalking. They include

Telling the police if you, or the person who know who is being stalked, is under 18
Start a log of communications. Keep it as detailed as possible with the time and event that happened.
If the perpetrator is known, send a clearly written letter, and save a copy in your log, asking that they stop communicating with you and letting them know that you plan to keep a record to the communications you have to report to the police
Do not meet in person with the stalker. This can become very dangerous for the victim.
Report to the police what has been happening to determine what chages, if any, can be filed.

For support of information, you can always contact the Rape Cisis Line at 319-335-6000.

Stalker Characteristics

Jealous in nature
Both obsessive and compulsive
Falls in “love at first sight”
Extremely manipulative
Very self-centered or arrogant
Never responsible for own actions or feelings
Confuses their fantasies with the reality
Socially inadequate or awkward
Feels they are always the victim of others
Sneaky
Won’t take “no” for an answer
Violent mood swings, especially between love and hate
Often are of above-average intelligence
Tremendous sense of entitlement
Controlling
Does not cope well with rejection

Stalking Awareness Month

National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM) in January
This January marks the fifth annual observance of, started in 2004 by the National Center for Victims of Crime. Since its inception, NSAM has become a unifying force for victim service providers across the country to raise awareness about the serious and deadly crime that victimizes more than one million women and nearly 400,000 men in America each year.

Test your knowledge about stalking. Take the quiz

Stalking Myths and Realities

10 Things You Should Know About Stalking: English Version

10 Things You Should Know About Stalking: Spanish Version

Stalking Fact Sheet: English Version

Stalking Fact Sheet: Spanish Version

Stalking in the Age of Technology

More resources:

National Crime Victims Center: Stalking Resource Center

Iowa Attorney General’s Office

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