Stalking Awareness Month 2013
From our partners at the Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime:
January is National Stalking Awareness Month, a time to focus on a crime that affect- ed 6.6 million victims in one year. The theme—“Stalking: Know It. Name It. Stop It.”—challenges the nation to fight this dangerous crime by learning more about it.
…in one of five cases, stalkers use weapons to harm or threaten victims, and stalking is one of the significant risk factors for femicide (homicide of women) in abusive relationships. Victims suffer anxiety, social dysfunction, and severe depression at much higher rates than the general population, and many lose time from work or have to move as a result of their victimization.
While stalking awareness has increased in recent years, the Stalking Resource Center reminds us that stalking can be hard to identify, investigate, and prosecute:
Unlike other crimes, stalking is not a single, easily identifiable crime but a series of acts, a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause that person fear. Stalking may take many forms, such as assaults, threats, vandalism, burglary, or animal abuse, as well as unwanted cards, calls, gifts, or visits. One in four victims reports that the stalker uses technology, such as computers, global positioning system devices, or hidden camer- as, to track the victim’s daily activities. Stalkers fit no standard psychological profile, and many stalk- ers follow their victims from one jurisdiction to another, making it difficult for authorities to investigate and prosecute their crimes.
How can you get involved in Stalking Awareness Month? The Stalking Resource Center has everything from sample PSAs to press releases to posters to website banners to social media status updates!
How do you plan on spreading awareness and talking action to end stalking? Share your ideas and thoughts with us!
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