Types Of Stalking Essay

Victims of Stalking/Criminal Harassment
Jessica Beaulieu/995908
Victimology
Brenda Thomas

      Stalking has recently emerged as a social problem, becoming more clinically researched and being made more aware to the public as a problem. It has come to the attention of many jurisdictions and is now a criminal offence. The word “stalk” was basically defined as the act of following ones prey or walking stealthily (Mullen, Pathe, & Purcell, 2000). There was once no legal definition for stalking, people described it as being pestered or frequently followed by strangers; looking back on their experiences, now that there is a definition they realize they were stalked. Stalking has become more dangerous, victimization is becoming worse to the extent that they are murdered often times. Victims suffer from traumatisation and other psychological problems and should receive significant counselling until they are completely over the situations. As well as stalker profiles there are also victim profiles. Victims are just ordinary people, most times are women and are often times stalked by an ex lover, 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men are stalked annually, they are also usually between the ages of 18-29 years of age (Davis, K.E, Frieze, I, & Maiuro, 2002). There is no specific thing about someone that every stalker would want to stalk; every stalker chooses their victims for reasons beyond what people can classify as a characteristic. Some ways to keep safe when you think you are being stalked have been mentioned in “The SavvyHomaker magazine” and they are the following: Stay in well lit areas that are well populated, contact the law enforcement right away, do not ignore the stalker because they will not go away, be alert, do not confront the stalker as the situation could become violent, keep personal logs, change your number and if possible keep the old phone, and last but not least get advance home security systems.
      Victims did not always have protection again...