If you are a victim of stalking, please call the National Center for Victims of Crime, Stalking Resource Center at 1-800-394-2255 or 1-800-211-7996 (TTY).
My husband watches for these things and reminds me that January is National Stalking Awareness Month. If you have been imitating Rip Van Winkle, Peter Klaus, Honi M’agel or any other literary hypersomniacs, wake up and read below.
The US Department of Justice states the definition of stalking is:
“Stalking generally refers to harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person’s home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person’s property. These actions may or may not be accompanied by a credible threat of serious harm, and they may or may not be precursors to an assault or murder.”
The legal definition, as do many things, varies from state to state though most now include:
“States define stalking as the willful, malicious, and repeated following and harassing of another person, some States include in their definition such activities as lying-in-wait, surveillance, nonconsensual communication, telephone harassment, and vandalism.”
Since 2005, cyberstalking has also been part of the actionable definition.
There are varying statistics on stalking, with the CDC estimating in 2005 that 7 million women and 2 million men in the United States that have been stalked. Most know their stalkers. It appears from reports in 1998 that Indigenous and Alaskan Inuit women may suffer a rate, with other minority women and white women about the same percentage.
Stalking is part of the pattern of woman hatred and killing. About 76% of women homicide victims were found to have been stalked by their partners before they were killed by them.
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Title: Stalking in America: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey.
Series: Research in Brief
Author: Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes
Published: April 1998
http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/169592.txt
CDC: National Stalking Awareness Month January 2008
National Institute of Justice: Stalking
PUMA, The New Agenda, 4ERA, 51 Percent
Grab and Keel 
I am happy to see that there is some place for women to call for help if they are being stalked.
20 years ago, when I worked in the World Trade Center, I was a victim of a stalker for two years. This animal knew the law and just how far to go and not to go. NYPD and the Port Authority’s response was that they could do nothing, so they did nothing.
As it turned out, I was lucky. Thank you for this post. I would like to mention National Stalking Awareness Month in my blog and refer over to yours. I hope you do not mind.
Thank you again.
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bydesign001- I’m sorry to hear of what must have been a painful and frightening episode for you. Many of us have been through this – probably more than the statistics. 20 years ago I’m not sure many even knew what to call it. I didn’t.
The broader the circle, the more we know. please link.
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Thanks for your post. It’s important that women are aware of the resources they have and that they are not alone. We teach personal security awareness and encourage all women to take their personal self defense seriously.
Please feel free to link http://www.self-defense-mind-body-spirit.com/january-is-national-stalking-awareness-month.html
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With statistics that indicate 1 in 12 women will be stalked in their lifetimes it is very important that the readers learn about Attorney Dawn V. Martin and her 11 year battle for women’s rights in the workplace.
Today if a woman is stalked in the workplace and reports her employer may terminate in retaliation and face no consequences.
For 11 years attorney Martin a former law professor at Howard U, has battled to fight for the rights or working women who are stalked in the workplace and terminated.
See http://www.AlexisAMoore.blogspot.com or visit Attorney Martin’s web site http://www.DVMartinlaw.com
The case is active – the next hearing date in the DC circuit is Jan 9, 2009.
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