Introduction

The various metamorphoses experienced by the meaning attached to stalking were described in Chapter 1. Understandably, the potential prevalence and nature of stalking shifted dramatically as the definitional constraints on the behaviour changed. The prevalence of stalking differs according to whether we confine its use to the pursuit of the famous, the harassing of women, the obsessive following of others or, finally, to the specific patterns of repeatedly intrusive behaviour that occasion fear. The changing constructions throw up different typifying instances with different propositions about what constitutes stalking and what are its likely implications. The stalking of Rebecca Schaeffer was the paradigm case of ‘star stalking’. The construction of stalking within a domestic violence paradigm offered equally frightening defining instances in, for example, the killing of American Kristin Lardner by her ex-boyfriend (Lardner, 1995) and the understandably extensively reported pursuit of Joy Silverman by her ex-lover, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler in the USA (see Gross, 1994; Kurt, 1995).

As the net represented by stalking widens to catch an ever larger range of behaviours and perpetrators, there has not always been an appropriate shift in the image conjured up by the label stalking. When the lifetime prevalence of stalking was reported to be between 8% and 12% for women in the USA (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998), the image conjured up for many was of vast numbers of women living in fear for their lives and at the mercy of potential killers.

Introduction

The emergence of stalking as a distinct category of behaviour brought the topic of erotomania into the clinical limelight. The new found prominence of a syndrome that has previously languished among the uncommon, not to say obscure, psychiatric syndromes, highlighted the inadequacy as well as the utilities of what had been a venerable, if little used, conceptualization. A detailed account of erotomania and its variants is now provided, in part because such disorders are the origin of many intimacy seeker's behaviour and in part because it still provides the richest source of clinical literature relating to stalking.

Currently the erotomanias tend to be viewed as conditions characterized by a delusional system that centres on the belief that the sufferer is the object of the love of another. The erotomanias are considered to exist either as primary (pure) or secondary (symptomatic) conditions. The primary erotomanias are a monodelusional state unaccompanied by other severe disturbances of mental state such as hallucinations. The secondary erotomanias involve a delusional system arising in the context of a pre-existing psychotic condition, for example schizophrenia. To a greater or lesser extent each of the elements that constitute this conceptualization are under challenge. The exclusive emphasis on a delusional belief in being loved, which excludes pathological infatuation, has been questioned (Stone, 1984; Mullen & Pathé, 1994a).

Introduction

Stalking emerged as a significant social issue in no small part because it was presented as the harbinger of violent, and potentially homicidal, assault. Arguably the pre-eminent defining instance of stalking was the pursuit of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a disordered fan who eventually attacked and killed her. This shocking example of the potentially lethal conclusion imminent in stalking was the stimulus to the first anti-stalking legislation (see Chapter 14). In other jurisdictions dramatic examples of stalking behaviours that culminated in serious or fatal physical violence provoked a public outcry that led to the initiating of anti-stalking legislation. In South Australia, for example, the initiative to introduce an anti-stalking Bill related to the killing of a personal assistant to a State Senator. The victim had been stalked by her estranged husband who followed her from one end of Australia to the other. Stalking was constructed initially as a form of threat. This all too easily converted stalking's importance into being not so much bolstered by the potential for violence but reduced to a message the meaning of which was a warning about imminent assault.

Associating stalking with dramatic instances that culminated in dreadful explosions of physical violence propelled stalking into prominence in the media, in the public mind and ultimately onto the legislative agendas of politicians. The advantages of this construction were manifest.

Introduction

The clinical studies reviewed in Chapter 3 demonstrate the destructive impact of stalking on its victims. Being stalked can induce depression, anxiety and chronic stress. The syndrome of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been used here, as in so many areas of trauma and victimization, to describe and delineate the psychological sequelae of stalking. PTSD offers a label that encompasses the increased fear and arousal experienced by many victims, the deliberate avoidance of reminders of the harassment, and intrusive re-experiencing phenomena such as nightmares. Given the frequency with which stalking victims report such symptoms, the focus in this chapter is on the clinical management of these forms of psychological disturbance.

The efficacy of supportive, cognitive behavioural and pharmacological therapies in the treatment of traumatic stress has been reported, particularly for those individuals exposed to combat, sexual assault or natural disasters (for comprehensive reviews see Shalev et al., 1996; Foa & Meadows, 1997). To our knowledge, however, the utility of these treatments in the management of stalking victims has yet to receive empirical support. Unlike other forms of traumatic stress that involve lifethreatening but relatively circumscribed events, stalking can present a more complex dynamic for the clinician as victims experience repeated and often prolonged trauma. The situation is akin to that of victims of domestic violence and, like them, stalking victims may present to health professionals during the course of their victimization.

Introduction

The past decade has seen an intensification of curiosity and concern relating to stalkers and their activities, but interest in the victims of stalking is a relatively recent development. Much common knowledge of victims was gleaned initially from media reports of celebrities and other public figures who had fallen prey to crazed fans or resentful constituents (see Dietz et al., 1991a,b; de Becker, 1997) and it was generally thought that such activities rarely involved ordinary citizens. In recent times researchers and legislators, recognizing major shortcomings in our understanding of stalking behaviours and their management, have focussed their attention upon stalking victims as a source of data that is not necessarily reflected in official records or in studies of perpetrators (Hall, 1998).

As a consequence of systematic enquiry into victims' experiences many earlier notions about stalkers and those they target are being revised. Victims of stalking certainly exist in the wider community and are not a rarity (some authorities believing that this crime has already reached epidemic proportions), nor can any citizen claim immunity from a stalker's unwanted attentions by virtue of gender, age, socioeconomic status, occupation or cultural background, although there is little doubt that some, such as celebrities, are at greater risk than others.

Introduction

Stalking is usually conceived of as a properly heterosexual activity, with men pursuing women and women pursuing men. Instances of same gender stalking have been thought to constitute a rarity, some suggesting fewer than 1% of all cases (Meloy, 1996), but more recent studies of stalking behaviours undertaken in larger, less selective populations indicate that they are more prevalent than was formerly estimated (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998; Mullen et al., 1999). Gender has received minimal attention in most stalking studies despite the consideration given to a range of other demographic variables with predictive potential for, say, the course of the pursuit or the likelihood of stalker violence. While it has been suggested, for instance, that females who stalk female ex-intimates may be more likely to assault their victims (National Institute of Justice, 1996) this issue has not been examined empirically.

In our clinical experience those stalked by individuals of the same gender are exposed to greater scepticism and indifference by law enforcement and other helping agencies. This is not entirely a homophobic response as it appears to be independent of the victim's sexual orientation, although the victim's stated sexual proclivities are not infrequently called into question.

Introduction

The intimacy seekers and the incompetent suitors are, in combination, among the most numerous and persistent of stalkers. Both groups are attempting to establish a relationship with the object of their unwanted attentions. They pursue acquaintances and strangers on whom they have focussed their interest. It is usually among these two types of stalker that the ‘star stalkers’ who pursue the famous are to be found. Although there are similarities between the intimacy seekers and the incompetent suitors with regard both to their behaviours and to the factors that predispose to their embarking on stalking, we argue below there are sufficient differences to distinguish between the two types.

Those who view stalking primarily in the context of violence against women, often emphasize that those who stalk a hoped-for partner are showing insensitivity and the desire to dominate rather than necessarily being psychiatrically disturbed, let alone pursuing some misguided quest for love. Emerson et al. (1998) clearly articulated the view that such stalking is a product of social pathology, not individual psychopathology. They argued that the behaviour arises from a one-sided attempted to create a relationship which ignores the legitimate interests and rights of the object of these unwanted attentions. Emerson et al. (1998) were forthright in their opposition to pathologising the stalker.

In addition to the more direct forms of harassment described in earlier chapters, stalkers may involve other people or agencies in their attempts to communicate, contact or track their victim. We have termed those stalking activities that are perpetrated by others on the stalker's behalf ‘stalking by proxy’. For the most part the involvement of others is unwitting. All manner of explanations may be offered by the stalker to encourage others to engage in these activities. Sometimes, friends and family members labour under the illusion that their loved one is in fact the victim of stalking at the hands of the true victim (e.g. see role reversal in Chapter 11). Some confederates are less concerned with the moral or legal implications, succumbing to bribes. In certain situations, such as delivery services, the transaction appears quite legitimate and may not arouse suspicion.

Victims may on occasion erroneously believe that others have been recruited by their stalker. They allege corrupt employees in telephone companies hired by the stalker to monitor calls or to interfere with traced calls, motor mechanics incited by the stalker to tamper with the victim's vehicle, or council workers recruited to watch the victim's home. These claims may have a delusional basis or reflect the overwrought reactions of a distressed victim driven beyond reason.

This chapter describes instances of individuals or agencies who have knowingly or unwittingly been suborned into assisting a stalker's pursuit and intrusions.

Until a little more than a decade ago the word ‘stalking’ was attached, almost exclusively, to the activities of hunters who called the pursuit of deer and other animals sport. To stalk and to be stalked have today acquired radically different and even more sinister resonances. Stalkers are now the frightening pursuers who haunt not merely the famous but potentially all of us. To stalk is a crime. To be a stalker is to transgress the all important boundaries that protect individuals from incursions by those they perceive as threatening. To be stalked is to be a victim.

The new language of stalking was born in the sensationalism of the media who first appropriated the term stalker to name the persistent pursuers of celebrities. The term was taken up with alacrity and rapidly generalized to cover unwanted following, approaching and harassing in all its many and varied forms. Now stalking forms part of legal and scientific discourses as well as having acquired a privileged status among the descriptors of our society's categories of fear.

Stalking established itself as a social problem and as a specific type of criminal offence before clear definitions of its nature, its causes, its possible impacts and its natural history were established. In a short history, stalking has metamorphosed from the pursuit of the famous by the deranged, to the harassment of women by insensitive ex-partners, to a broad categorization of repeated intrusions that induce apprehension in a wide range of targets.

Introduction

Classifications should not simply facilitate communication by giving names to items in a previously undistinguished landscape but should articulate relationships between conceptually similar groups as well as tell us something about what can be expected of each class. Classifications are in part creatures of convenience, which emerge within particular discourses and reflect not only the qualities of the things being classified but also the imperatives that operate in those discourses. In medicine, for example, classifications are generally diagnostic, being constructed on the basis of cause, course, outcome and, where possible, treatment. Diagnosis is used as a guide to prognosis and management. Diagnostic systems are usually subservient to those ends rather than to the purely theoretical goal of establishing mutually exclusive sets where membership in a given set, or class, is absolute with no room for vagueness or ambiguity. In any practical pursuit, such as those in which mental health professionals engage, classifications should serve the goals of the professional's clinical activities, not just the purer theoretical aims of the sciences that they mediate. Classifications of stalkers are likely to vary according to the needs of the group seeking to articulate the classification. For example, law enforcement officers, mental health professionals and advocates for the victims of domestic violence, all have legitimate concerns with stalking and stalkers; thus they have each evolved classifications that both further their ends and can be readily reconciled with the technical languages they habitually employ.

Introduction

The constellation of acts that constitute stalking, when considered individually, often may seem innocuous to the uninvolved observer and their threatening nature may be far from immediately apparent. When repeated over time, however, the actions of the stalker all too often take on an altogether more sinister import for the object of these unwanted attentions. Although ‘stalking’ is a new word, the behaviour itself is not new to the criminal justice system, having been dealt with in various ways by the courts since at least the eighteenth century. The recent media fascination with the stalking of high-profile victims, and cases where the pursuit of former intimate partners has culminated in violence, highlighted problems with existing legal responses. Largely as a result of agitation in the media, stalking has come to be regarded as both new and increasingly prevalent, requiring immediate political and legislative responses. Although in fact not new and possibly not even increasing in frequency, it is true that existing criminal, civil and common laws, despite being available to prosecute stalking-related conduct, have proved largely insufficient either to deter the perpetrator of stalking or to protect the victim. The laws that existed in most jurisdictions prior to 1990 applied to single illegal acts, rather than taking into consideration the repetition of an act, which may change not just its gravity but its very nature.

Introduction

Central to how stalking is constructed, both as a concept and in many jurisdictions as an offence, is the victim's perceptions of being harassed and rendered fearful. Given this subjective element it might be expected in some cases that there would be a genuine disjunction between the view taken of the behaviour at issue by the putative perpetrator and that of the complainant. Beyond such differences of perspective there is also a small proportion of individuals who claim to be stalking victims but who quite simply have not been subjected to the behaviour about which they complain.

Although false allegations of stalking have received scant attention in the literature to date, false victims of crime have been documented since biblical times in a number of cultures (Mohandie et al., 1998) and there is an expanding literature on intentional false reports of rape (Kanin, 1994), sexual misconduct (Gutheil, 1992), sexual harassment (Long, 1994; Feldman-Schorrig, 1995, 1996) and physical assault (Eisendrath, 1996).

Kanin (1994), who studied forty-five cases of falsely alleged rape presenting to a police agency over a nine-year period, observed that the false allegations served three main functions: to furnish an alibi, typically in the wake of regretted consensual sex or unwanted pregnancy; to inflict revenge, as in the case of a woman who retaliates against a rejecting male; and as a ploy to procure sympathy and attention.

Introduction

Stalkers and stalking are words that have acquired new connotations by being increasingly applied to individuals who persistently pursue, or otherwise intrude on, others. Stalking has emerged as a social problem that not only commands considerable public attention but is now, in many jurisdictions, a specific form of criminal offence. Stalking is increasingly attracting clinical and research interest among behavioural scientists and mental health professionals.

The word ‘stalk’ has the meaning of both the act of following one's prey and walking stealthily. To label someone a stalker has been, at least from the sixteenth century, to imply that he or she is a prowler or a poacher (Oxford English Dictionary, 1971). When the media appropriated the word to describe those who pestered and harassed others they provided a new focus for this ancient indictment.

‘Stalking’ is now part of our culture's language. It has become a category with which we describe and understand our experiences. If someone is repeatedly followed by a stranger, or is distressed at receiving numerous unwanted letters from an estranged partner then, in today's world, they are likely to describe themselves as being stalked. Looking back over their life they may now recall having been stalked in the past. At the time they might have described the experience as having been persistently pestered but now, retrospectively, it is recognized as their having been stalked.

Introduction

Approaches to managing stalking behaviours have been discussed at various points in the book, most particularly in the chapters on the stalker typology and on erotomania. The focus has been, to this point, almost exclusively on how best to end the stalking behaviours. The extent of the disruption that stalking brings to the life of the perpetrator as well as the victim has been acknowledged but rarely given attention. Sympathy for the stalker is not a proposition with immediate appeal. And yet these are often a lonely, inadequate, disturbed, if not frankly mentally ill, group of human beings. Their stalking reflects a range of influences among which can be remediable mental disorders as well as modifiable characterological and social skills deficits. Furthermore, it is the distress and disruption experienced by the stalkers that can potentially be used as a lever to alter their behaviour and release the victims from continuing distress and disruption.

A false dichotomy is often created in the management of mentally disordered offenders between the social imperatives of prevention and punishment and the health responsibilities of treatment and care. The issue of how to respond to a mentally abnormal offender is sometimes presented as a choice between either responding to the claims of the victim and the wider society or responding to the needs of the offender.

Introduction

The predatory stalker's behaviours are a means to an end, and that end is an attack, usually sexual, on the victim. The predatory stalker prepares for and anticipates the attack in the process of following and observing the victim.