Comprehensive Statistics

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·          More than one million women and almost 400,000 men are stalked annually in the United States.[1]

·          Eight percent of women and two percent of men in the United States have been stalked in their lifetime.[2]

·          Although stalking is a gender-neutral crime, most victims (78 percent) are female and most perpetrators (87 percent) are male.[3]

·          Twenty-eight percent of female stalking victims and 10 percent of male victims obtained a protective order. Sixty-nine percent of female victims and 81 percent of male victims had the protection order violated.[4]

·          Eighty-one percent of women who were stalked by a current or former husband or cohabiting partner were also physically assaulted, and 31 percent were also sexually assaulted by that partner.[5]

·          The average duration of stalking is 1.3 years; most stalking, however, lasts one month.[6] 

·          Two-thirds of stalkers pursue their victims at least once per week.[7] 

·          Seventy-eight percent of stalkers use more than one means of contacting the victim.[8] 

·          Weapons are used to harm or threaten stalking victims in one out of five cases.[9] 

·          One-seventh of stalkers are psychotic at the time of stalking.[10]

·          One-third of stalkers are repeat stalkers.[11] 

·          Over 50 percent of stalkers have had a previous relationship with the victim (commonly referred to as intimate partner stalking).[12] 

·          Intimate partner stalkers use more insults, interfering, threats, and violence, including with weapons, than other types of stalkers.[13]

·          Stalking is one of the significant risk factors for femicide (homicide of women) in abusive relationships.[14]

·          An analysis of 13 published studies of 1,155 stalking cases found that the average overall rate of violence experienced by the victims was 38.7 percent.[15]

·          The same analysis found that a history of substance abuse is one of the strongest predictors of increased rates of violence in stalking crimes.[16]

·          The prevalence of anxiety, insomnia, social dysfunction, and severe depression is much higher among stalking victims that the general population.[17]

·          One study found that serious violence in stalking was significantly associated with former sexual intimacy, previously appearing at the victim's home, the absence of a criminal record, and a shorter duration of stalking.[18]

·          A survey of university undergraduates revealed that 20 percent had been stalked or harassed by a former dating partner; 8 percent had initiated stalking or harassment; and 1 percent had been both the target and the initiator.[19]

·          A recent study identified threats, partner jealousy, and former partner drug abuse as factors that were predictive of stalking violence.[20]