Kayla Woody, CPN House of Hope Prevention Specialist
The month of January is focused on stalking awareness, and our main objective here at the House of Hope is educating the public on the reality of stalking.
Stalking is defined as “any person who, willfully, maliciously and repeatedly follows or harasses another person in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to feel frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed or molested.” According to the Bureau of Justice, each year over 7.5 million people are stalked in the United States, and over half of those victims indicated that they were stalked before the age of 25. This puts teens and college-age students at a much higher risk.
So, what does a stalker look like? The common idea is that it’s a stranger lurking in the shadows. However, the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center, SPARC, states that nearly 3 in 4 stalking victims knew their offender in some capacity and, of those victims, 40% were stalked by a current or former intimate partner.
Common stalking behaviors include:
- Sending persistent unwanted gifts
- Seeking information about a person through public records or online searches
- Damaging property
- Sending unwanted texts and emails
- Posting personal information about the victim and spreading harmful rumors
- Creating or manipulating situations to contact the victim
- Hacking into social media accounts
- Putting the victim in a challenging or harmful situation to play the hero
- Waiting outside the victim’s home, school or place of employment
- Persistently asking for a date
- Tracking locations
Stalking is considered a crime in all 50 states. Unfortunately, it’s a highly underreported crime because of the difficulty in proving the stalking behavior. Victims are often not taken seriously because of the current misconceptions from society.
Some stalking myths include:
- Only celebrities are stalked
- If you ignore stalking, it will go away
- Stalking is annoying but not dangerous
- You can’t be stalked by someone you are still dating
- If you confront the stalker, they will go away
House of Hope can help those who may be dealing with stalking behaviors. We can assist with locating emergency shelters along with safety planning for the future. We can assist with a protective order as well as court advocacy. Our highly trained advocates can also provide tips on how to stay safe.
If you or someone you know is experiencing stalking, intimate partner violence, and/or sexual assault and would like more information, please contact House of Hope at 405-275-3176 or visit us online at facebook.com/cpnhouseofhope.