Abstract
The study analysed cases reported to police by men and women who were victims of stalking. The objective was to describe the characteristics of the stalking campaigns experienced by men and women, their consequences, and the coping strategies adopted by the victims, as they are recorded in police case files. All the information was collected in three cities in the Northwest of Italy. Analyses were performed on 271 files classified by police officers as cases of stalking, reported by men (87, 32.1%) and women (184, 67.9%). The study revealed that men tended to let the stalking campaign last for a longer time than women before turning to the police. Procrastination had some consequences, especially in the emotional sphere, that affected the victim’s wellbeing. Moreover, the coping strategies used by men victims were not effective and even risked to hamper the work of the police officers intervening and investigating on the case.
Highlights
Stalking has been a focus of interest of social scientists since the 1990’s
This study aims to understand the differences between men and women in the experiencing of being a victim of stalking: in men, this could be useful to identify barriers to help-seeking as well as provide insight to police officers [32]
It revealed that men tend to let a stalking campaign last for a long time before reporting it to police
Summary
Stalking has been a focus of interest of social scientists since the 1990’s. In Italy, where the study we present here was conducted, it has been considered a crime since 2009. Stalking is commonly defined as a set of repetitive, unwelcome, and intrusive behaviours directed towards an individual who experiences apprehension, annoyance, and/or fear for her/his safety or the safety of others [1]. The same authors conducted one of the first investigations in the US involving the general population (2000). In a sample of 16,000 people (50% men), 0.5% of men and 4.1% of women reported to having been victims of stalking in the previous 12 months. 27.8% of women victims, but less than half as many men (13.4%) turned to the police. Similar figures were found by Hall [3]. In her investigation, most of the men victims had been stalked by a woman; they
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