Bulletin Reports

Stalking Victimization

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has released Stalking Victimization in the United States. The special report presents findings on nonfatal incidents based on the largest data collection of such behavior to date. Data were collected in a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and sponsored by the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Topics covered in the report include stalking and harassment prevalence rates by demographic characteristics, offender attributes, victim-offender relationship, duration of stalking, cyberstalking, protection measures, and emotional impact. The document also contains data concerning whether victims sought help from others, the involvement of a weapon, injuries sustained, other crimes perpetrated by the stalker, and response by the criminal justice system.

Highlights from the report revealed that about half (46 percent) of stalking victims experienced at least one unwanted contact per week, and 11 percent of victims said that they had been stalked for five years or more. Approximately 1 in 4 stalking victims reported some form of cyberstalking, such as e-mail (83 percent) or instant messaging (35 percent). Women were at greater risk than men for stalking victimization; however, women and men were equally likely to experience harassment. Nearly 3 in 4 stalking victims knew their offender in some capacity. More than half of stalking victims lost five or more days from work. The report is available at the BJS website, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs, and at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s website, http://www.ncjrs.gov, under NCJ 224527.