Childhood Stalkers Not Kidding Around

Adult stalkers can not only cause their victims great emotional distress, but also prove dangerous to their physical safety and well-being. This is the case not just for male adult stalkers, but for female ones too (Psychiatric News, November 5, 2004; September 2, 2005).

The same is true for juvenile stalkers as well, a new study has found. In fact, juvenile stalking is characterized by far higher levels of threats and violence than is adult stalking, reports the research team.

This study appears to be the first systematic reported analysis of the juvenile stalker phenomenon in any country. It was headed by Rosemary Purcell, Ph.D., senior research fellow and team leader at the Center of Excellence in Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Results were published in the May British Journal of Psychiatry.

Restraining-order applications against 875 youth were processed in the Melbourne Children's Court between 2004 and 2006. Purcell and her coworkers found that 299 of these youth met their criteria for stalkers—that is, they engaged in unwanted intrusions into a victim's life for at least two weeks—and not just on school grounds, but elsewhere. (If such intrusions occurred only on school grounds, the researchers considered them bullying, not stalking.) Purcell and her colleagues then analyzed information about these youth to learn about juvenile stalkers.

Most were male and their victims mostly female, the researchers learned. Most pursued someone they knew.

The preferred method of harassment was making phone calls to the targeted individual, followed by text messaging, trailing, sending e-mails, or posting malicious information about him or her on Internet sites. (Indeed, a volunteer organization called Working to Halt Online Abuse agrees that such cyberstalking is far from rare. According to the organization's Web site, 234 cases were reported to it in 2008.) Sometimes the stalkers got other youth to help them in their stalking activities.

As for the stalkers' motives, the most common seemed to be an extension of bullying—that is, simply a desire to torment their victim—followed by retaliation over a perceived harm, such as rejection. Five percent (16 stalkers) wanted to impose unwanted sexual contact on a victim; in one of these cases the stalker was female. Two percent (six stalkers) stalked their victim simply because of romantic infatuation. However, this small group pursued its victims longer than any of the other groups and also used an especially large number of harassment methods, including loitering and maintaining surveillance.

Three-fourths of the stalkers' victims reported being threatened by them. Threats ranged from veiled comments such as “Watch your back” to explicit threats to harm, rape, or even kill. Over half the victims were physically attacked. Several suffered head injuries or lost consciousness after being strangled. Five victims were seriously assaulted sexually; one was a 14-year-old girl who was raped by her former boyfriend on the school grounds.

The victims also suffered extensively psychologically. The school performance of some declined; others did not attend school because they were afraid that their stalkers would make good on their threats. Eleven percent (32 individuals) suffered severe depression or suicidal ideation; one required hospitalization as a result. Some of the victims' parents were also terrified about their child's safety. In 14 cases, parents sent their child to another school or even moved to a new neighborhood.

“Stalking behaviors in juveniles has traditionally been trivialized as uncommon and innocuous,” Purcell and her group pointed out in the study's report. These results demonstrate that this is not the case, they said. “Juvenile stalking is characterized by direct, intense, overly threatening, and all-too-often violent forms of pursuit.... [Indeed] juvenile stalking is characterized by far higher levels of threats and violence than [are] found in adult stalking.”

So what can be done to protect the victims of youthful stalkers?“ Restraining orders are commonly utilized to curtail stalking,” Purcell and her team wrote. “However, their effectiveness is yet to be reliably established. Although only 6 percent of cases here involved a reported breach during the study period, this low rate is not yet cause for optimism since the majority of restraining-order applications were not granted, predominantly due to the victim failing to proceed.”

As for efforts to help juvenile stalkers change their behaviors, they are“ sorely lacking, if not absent, in most countries,” Purcell and her team noted in their report. And as Purcell told Psychiatric News,“ I'm not aware of any group or service that targets interventions with juvenile stalkers. Even among convicted stalkers in our jurisdiction, there is no capacity for referral to mental health services or counseling to specifically address the stalking behaviors, which we believe is critical for reducing recidivism in this population.”

The study was funded by the Criminology Research Council of Australia.

An abstract of “Stalking Among Juveniles” is posted at<http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/194/5/451>.▪