'Stalking' - Seeking the victim's perspective

The law has experienced great difficulty in defining 'stalking' and framing legislation to deal with the problem. There has been little research as to how the public in general and potential victims in particular view this ph enomenon. In an effort to explore this issue, 80 women aged 18 to 55 years were invited to classify which of a range of intrusive behaviours were exem plars of stalking. A cluster analysis of the classification data showed a c lear distinction between those which participants felt to be stalking and n on-stalking related acts. Further, a number of distinct sub-categories of p erceived stalking behaviours were suggested by the analysis. Participants w ere also asked to indicate whether they had first hand experience of any of these behaviours and to describe their worst personal experience of 'stalk ing'. Analysis of this data suggested that instances of what our respondent s perceived as 'stalking' was widespread in the sample and that some of its more serious manifestations would, if reported, have led to criminal charg es. The difficulties of framing legislation, however, to define all the act s which our respondents saw as 'stalking' remain.