The UK’s National Stalking Awareness Week, which begins on 24th April, aims to raise awareness around stalking and related issues.
Perpetrators of domestic violence often use stalking to intimidate their victims. The behaviour has come under the spotlight over the last few months in light of new evidence which suggests violent partners are using the family courts to stalk, harass and bully partners, children and acquaintances.
The ONS has some interesting data on intimate partner stalking. The table below comes from the ONS and shows stalking incidents by partners and family members.
A lot of work still needs to be done in this area in particular training organisations and the police up to be able to recognise stalking behaviours, however the government’s latest proposals to create stalking protection orders and double the criminal sentence for stalking have been welcomed by campaigners.
Paladin, a stalking advocacy service, has some useful stats on their site:
- The Crime Survey of England and Wales shows up to 700,000 women are stalked each year (2009-12) although the British Crime Survey (2006) estimated 5 million people experience stalking each year.
- 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men will experience staking in their adult life.
- In 2013/14 CPS figures revealed that 743 stalking offences were prosecuted whereas 9,792 were prosecuted for harassment out of the 61 175 allegations recorded by police. Therefore only 1% of cases of stalking and 16% of cases of harassment recorded by the police result in a charge and prosecution by the CPS.
- Research reveals that only 11% of stalkers received an immediate custodial sentence for Section 2a stalking and just 9% for a Section 4a stalking offence in 2013.
- Victims do not tend to report to the police until the 100th Incident.
- 50% of victims have curtailed or stopped work due to stalking
- The Workplace Violence Research Institute found that 90% of corporate security professionals had handled 3 or more incidents of men stalking women in the workplace and claimed stalking was related to homicide in 15% of cases.
- 75% of domestic violence stalkers will visit the workplace.
- 79% of domestic violence stalker will use work resources to target victims.
- 1 in 2 domestic stalkers, if they make a threat, will act on it.
- 1 in 10 stalkers, who had no prior relationship, if they make a threat will act on it.
- Statistics show that the majority of victims (80.4%) are female while the majority of perpetrators (70.5%) are male.
- The Metropolitan Police Service found that 40% of the victims of domestic homicides had also been stalked.
Cyber stalking also, has become increasingly prevalent, with around 40% of those affected being men.
Further reading, resources and support:
- Report A Stalker
- The Suzy Lamplugh Trust
- The Crown Prosecution’s Guidelines On Stalking And Harassment
- Victims’ Information Service
If you’re a Twitter geek, the hash tags for this event are #nsaw17 and #StalkingMatters.
