Stalking Awareness

January is Stalking Awareness Month. This is an educational campaign promoted by the National Center for Victims of Crime and the Stalking Resource Center (NCVC), both supported by the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). According to the NCVC, over 1.5 million people, including more than a million women, are stalked each year.

Since July 1, 1994, stalking in Iowa has been defined as a repeated course of conduct intended to cause fear of bodily injury or death, either to the person being stalked or to a member of the immediate household. Depending on the number of offenses and the methods of intimidation, the crime can be an aggravated misdemeanor or a serious felony. If a complaint is filed and probable cause is found, an arrest warrant is issued.

The biography for Bonnie Campbell’s entry into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame notes that she was the first woman to be elected as Iowa’s attorney general. While in office, she authored the state’s anti-stalking law, which was one of the first in the nation. In 1995, she became the first director of the OVW. The web site for Iowa’s current attorney general, Tom Miller, has easy to follow instructions for people who believe they are being stalked. These include contacting law enforcement and keeping a detailed record of stalking incidents.

Stalking can include being followed, monitoring of your electronic communications, receiving unwanted calls or gifts, having somebody search out information on you through public records or with a private investigator, and having your property damaged. Cyberstalking is also a concern, whether someone is hunting down information about you on the Internet or bothering you in a chat room. Earlier this week, according to an article appearing in the Press Citizen, the University of Iowa Rape Victim Advocacy Program distributed literature about stalking in English and in Spanish, as well as safety whistles and other resource items, on the Iowa City campus.

Strangers, estranged partners, and casual acquaintances can all be stalkers. Over three-fourths of female victims know their stalker and while that percentage is lower for male victims it is still high. For this reason, domestic violence is often included in information about stalking. Children & Families of Iowa has a statewide hotline for domestic violence. The telephone number is 1-800-942-0333. In literature promoting this number, CFI notes that 163 Iowans have been killed since 1995 because of domestic violence. Over 200 calls are made every day in Iowa for domestic violence and sexual assault.

In May 2001, the DOJ’s Office of Justice Reform (OJR) presented a report to Congress on domestic violence and stalking. The report notes that violence against women runs a continuum from emotional abuse to homicide and that its pattern is often predictable. Stalking is part of that continuum. The OJR seeks to fund research and to provide community resources that effectively halt the escalation of abuse in its early stages.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.