NCJ Number
188306
Date Published
2000
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This paper explores whether the introduction of the crime of stalking and the ability to apply for intervention orders on the basis of stalking, regardless of the relationship with the stalker, has hidden the reality of women's experiences of violence.
Abstract
This involves examining the "gendered nature" of stalking and placing behaviors identified as stalking in the context of part of the continuum of violence perpetrated by men against women. By placing the behaviors as part of this continuum, it is possible to determine that the behavior is not solely the province of those with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities. The author does this by considering the Victorian statistics on intervention orders as well as the author's experiences with the thousands of women who contact her service (CASA House in Australia) to deal with sexual violence each year. The only major study that has been conducted in Victoria on stalking focuses on stalkers who are identified as requiring psychiatric treatment. These two elements together can present a skewed picture of stalking. It is a picture that ignores the daily experience of the thousands of women who apply for intervention orders because they live in constant fear of their partners or ex-partners. It ignores the reality of those women and men who are stalked by strangers to the point where they have to change their lives to find a safe place. It ignores the element of control that is part and parcel of the stalking behavior of partners and ex-partners, and it ignores the situation of the women who constantly complain that their attempts to get police support in finding safety are of no avail, because the police will not charge their stalkers with breaching intervention orders. It is important, therefore, that the issue of stalking be the subject of a detailed study similar to that undertaken by the U.S. Department of Justice. 1 figure and 5 references