The Los Angeles Valley College
Health Advocacy Response Team

 

 

5800 Fulton Ave. Valley Glen, CA 91401-4096 • 818-947-2600

 

Emergencies

 

 Stalking

 

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Definition: Stalking is defined as a willful course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment made against the expressed wishes of another individual, which causes that individual to feel emotional distress including fear, harassment, intimidation or apprehension
Types of: Stalking is a gender neutral crime, with both male and female perpetrators and victims. However, most stalkers are men. Best statistics indicate that 75-80 percent (75-80%) of all stalking cases involve men stalking women. Most tend to fall into the young to middle-aged categories. Most have above-average intelligence. Stalkers come from every walk of life and every socio-economic background. Virtually anyone can be a stalker, just as anyone can be a stalking victim.  There are two main types of stalkers – “Love Obsession”, where stalkers develop a love obsession or fixation on someone with whom they have no personal relationship; and “Simple Obsession”, where a previous personal or romantic relationship did exist.  
Stalking Behavior: Stalkers may attempt to woo their victim into a relationship by sending flowers, candy and love letters, in an attempt to "prove their love." However, when the victim spurns their unwelcome advances, the stalker often turns to intimidation. Such attempts at intimidation often begin in the form of an unjustified, jealous and inappropriate intrusion into the victim's life. Often these contacts become more numerous and intrusive over time, until such collective conduct becomes a persistent pattern of harassment. Many times, harassing behavior escalates to threatening behavior. Such threats may be direct or indirect and communicated explicitly or implicitly by the stalker's conduct. Unfortunately, cases that reach this level of seriousness too often end in violence and/or murder.  These tactics are used by stalkers as a means of reasserting their dominance over the victim.

The evolution of the stalker's thought pattern progresses from, "If I can just prove to you how much I love you," to "I can make you love me," to "If I can't have you, nobody else will."

While this progression in behavior is common, no stalking case is completely predictable. Some stalkers may never escalate past the first stage. Others jump from the first stage to the last stage with little warning. It is not uncommon to see stalkers intersperse episodes of threats and violence with flowers and love letters.

It is this unpredictability that makes developing an effective response strategy so difficult in any particular stalking case.

 

Safety: The following is a list of suggestions that may help you increase your safety if you are being stalked.  The goal is to allow the stalker as little personal information about you as possible. Since each case of stalking is unique, there is no single list that will insure complete safety.

Helpful Tips

  • Refrain from meeting the stalker for any reason.
  • Avoid going to his or her aid.  You may believe that "talking" to the stalker will help him/her to understand that you are not interested, but this can backfire and the stalker may re-new their efforts toward you.  Also, the stalker may fake a crisis in attempt to get our attention. 
  • Tell as many people as you can.
  • Give friends, family members and coworkers a description of the stalker.  This will help protect you against the stalker trying to use a false story to get information about you.  Also, others can serve as witness to the stalker’s attempts to contact or look for you.
  • Get a private P.O. Box if the stalker doesn’t yet know where you live.
  • Change your address on Wolverine Access, giving the private mailbox address. Inform friends relatives and businesses of the new mail box address.  Ask that these people keep the address confidential.
  • Destroy your own discarded mail.
  • Save all mail, email, phone messages, and gifts from the stalker.
  • If you live in a Residence Hall, request a room change.
  • If you are being stalked over email, print the emails and save them as evidence.

Statistics

A 2006 survey from the Department of Justice indicates the following:

  • 8.1% of surveyed women and 2.2% of surveyed men reported being stalked at some time in their life.

The National Center for Victims of Crime found the following in 1995:

  • 75-80% of all stalking cases involve men stalking women. Most tend to fall into the young to middle-aged categories. Most have above-average intelligence. Stalkers come from every walk of life and every socio-economic background. Virtually anyone can be a stalker, just as anyone can be a stalking victim.

The 2000 National College Women Sexual Victimization Survey found the following results:

  • 13% of the college women had been stalked since the school year began
  • 80.3% of victims knew or had seen their stalker before
  • 42.4% of stalkers were ex-boyfriends of the victim.
  • In 15.3% of incidents, the victim reported that the stalker either threatened or attempted to harm them.
  • Overall, 83.1% of stalking incidents were NOT reported to police or campus law enforcement.
  • 93.4% of victims confided in someone, most often a friend, that they were being stalked.

 

 

The CVR Team's role is to seek ways to increase awareness and prevention measures on LAVC's campus regarding violence against women and men.

Further, to be available to assist the LAVC community with connecting to the appropriate resources when issues of violence are present in a student's life.

The CVR Team's role is to seek ways to increase awareness and prevention measures on LAVC's campus regarding violence against women and men.

Further, to be available to assist the LAVC community with connecting to the appropriate resources when issues of violence are present in a student's life.

The CVR Team's role is to seek ways to increase awareness and prevention measures on LAVC's campus regarding violence against women and men.

Further, to be available to assist the LAVC community with connecting to the appropriate resources when issues of violence are present in a student's life.