January is Stalking Awareness Month.
As the lead domestic violence agency in Schenectady, we work with victims of stalking every day. Stalking Awareness Month is a time to raise our voices against stalking and demand safety and justice for victims.
There is a real and frighteningly significant connection between stalking and intimate
partner violence. Stalking often co-occurs with intimate partner violence and can be an indicator of other forms of violence. Stalking can be a way to exert power and control during and/or after an abusive relationship.
*Source: SPARC.org
For more information on stalking, prevention and safety, please see below or visit SPARC.org.
What is Stalking?
A pattern of behavior directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for the person’s safety or the safety of others; or suffer substantial emotional distress.
Stalking Statistics
• 40% of stalking victims are stalked by current or former intimate partners.
• 57% of intimate partner stalking victims are stalked during the relationship.
• 74% of those stalked by a former intimate partner report violence and/or coercive control during the relationship.
• 81% of women stalked by a current or former husband or cohabitating partner were also physically assaulted by that partner.
• 31% of women stalked by an intimate partner were also sexually assaulted.
• 41% of victims stalked by a current intimate partner and 35% stalked by a former intimate partner experience threats of harm, compared to 24% stalked by a non-intimate partner.
• The average length of partner stalking is 2.2 years (longer than the average of just over 1 year for nonintimate partner cases).
Stalking & Partner Homicide
• Stalking increases the risk of intimate partner homicide by three times.
• The most common use of the criminal justice system prior to attempted or completed intimate partner homicide was reporting intimate partner stalking.
• Among female victims of attempted and completed intimate partner homicide by male partners, in the 12 months prior to the attack:
o 85% of attempted and 76% of completed homicide victims were stalked.
o 91% of attempted and 89% of completed homicide victims who had been physically abused during the relationship had also been stalked.
o 46% of attempted and 54% of completed homicide victims reported stalking before the attack, most commonly to police.
Intimate Partner Stalking Offenders
Abusive partners who stalk are more likely (than abusive partners who do not stalk) to verbally degrade, threaten, use a weapon to attack, sexually assault, and/or physically injure their victims.
• Intimate partner stalkers are more likely (than stalkers who are not intimate partners) to:
o Use the widest range of stalking tactics.
o Contact and approach victims more frequently.
o Assault their victims.
o Be insulting and interfere in the victim’s life.
o Escalate the frequency and intensity of pursuit more often.
o Threaten victims with weapons or actually use weapons on their victims.
o Be threatening to their victims and reoffend.
o Follow through on threats of violence. One study found that among stalking victims threatened, 71% of intimate partner victims were actually assaulted compared to 33% of non-intimate partner victims.
o Assault third parties.
o Reoffend after a court intervention and reoffend more quickly.
• The risk of physical violence is heightened when the intimate partner stalker:
o Issues direct threats of violence;
o Expresses jealousy of the victim’s relationships with others during the relationship; and
o Uses illegal drugs.
Stalking & Separation
• Victims stalked by violent partners report more separation attempts than partner violence victims who
were not stalked.
• Intimate partner stalking made victims more likely to want to leave the relationship than other factors,
including psychological aggression and injury.
• Stalking after a separation may increase the risk of violence