Assessing the link between stalking and domestic violence
Section snippets
Nature and prevalence of stalking
There are several research projects that have assessed the prevalence of stalking. Kong (1996), in a report for Statistics Canada, reported that in 1994 and 1995, there were 7462 incidents of criminal harassment reported to police. The survey employed the Revised Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCRS). This method functions as a means for gathering information from participating police agencies. Close to half (43%) of all police agencies in Canada were involved. Hence, although this was a
Descriptors of stalking
Studies on perpetrators have tended to focus on demographic, criminological, and psychiatric aspects of stalkers and, to a lesser extent, of victims. Use of threatened, as well as actual violence, in the stalking process has also received some attention, as has the nature of the relationship between the accused stalker and the victim. These areas will be reviewed in turn.
Table 1 presents a summary of some of the research on stalkers and displays some select features of these studies. As shown,
Typologies of stalkers
There have been a number of “typologies” of stalking put forward. Unfortunately, many of these are based not on rigorous data analytic techniques, but on intuition and clinically informed speculation. Clinical typologies of stalkers that have been replicated across studies do not yet exist. Some of the more common typologies will be summarized below.
Typologies can be divided into those that focus on the perpetrator, and those that focus on the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim
Stalking summary
Stalking is a fairly common phenomenon, with perhaps 5% of the general population experiencing it. Although the state of the research corpus cannot support very firm conclusions, it appears that Axis I and II disorders are prevalent. Concerning Axis II disorders, Cluster B personality disorders and traits predominate. Typologies of stalking have been forwarded, but tend not to have been empirically or systematically derived. However, a useful distinction to draw is based on the stalker–victim
Prevalence and nature of domestic violence
Although this paper deals both with stalking and domestic violence, its main purpose is not to thoroughly review the domestic violence literature. Rather, the following sections will describe definitions, incidence data, and common typologies of domestically violent persons that may stem from review sources. The aim is to apply these typologies of domestic violence to the stalking literature. Following the summary of domestic violence concepts, the link between stalking and domestic violence is
Definition and incidence of domestic violence
Although making a statement that a definition of a construct is clear is often dangerous, “domestic violence,” for the purposes of this paper at least, can be defined as violence or aggression perpetrated against one person in a domestic, marital, conjugal, or dating relationship, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Dutton (1995), more specifically, has defined wife assault as “any physical act of aggression by a man against a woman with whom he is in an intimate (i.e., sexual–emotional)
Typologies of batterers
There have been numerous typologies developed in the domestic violence literature (for reviews, see Dutton, 1998, Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; see also Table 2). Commonalties have emerged across these efforts, and the purpose of the present section is to summarize some of these typologies. We draw on Dutton's (1998) recent summary and integration of both primary empirical research and reviews. The general picture that emerges from the batterer research is that there appear to be three
Empirical evidence
The logical starting point for this section is to estimate the proportion of stalkers who pursue former intimate partners. This information was summarized above, and will be mentioned only briefly here. A reasonable estimate of the percent of stalking victims who were once intimate partners of their pursuers is 50% to 60%. Focusing somewhat, the next question becomes what proportion of this group involved domestic violence situations? That is, a person may stalk a former intimate partner to
Stalking among intimate abusers
There appears to be only one direct study that falls within this category. Burgess et al. (1997) studied a group of 120 persons who were charged with felony domestic violence and were attending a treatment program. Of these 120 batterers, 36 (30%) admitted to stalking their partners. More support, albeit indirect, is found in correlational studies of relational intrusion. Dutton et al. (1996) found that a measure of relationship intrusiveness, created from what appears to be the criminal
Intimate abuse among stalkers
These studies include samples of stalkers, some of whom have been violent within past intimate relationships. The study by the Department of Justice Canada (1996) determined that of the 57% of stalking victims who were stalked by former intimate partners, half of these intimate partners were also violent within the previous relationship. Kienlen et al. (1997) found that, within their sample of 25 stalkers, 15 (60%) stalked former intimate partners. Of these, seven (47%) had been violent within
A profile of intimate stalkers
The empirical evidence to this point seems to suggest that stalkers tend to possess certain characteristics: threatening and violent behavior, prior intimate partners as victims, substance abuse, other Axis I disorders such as depression or schizophrenia, and Axis II pathology, including especially Cluster B personality traits, as well as dependent, schizoid, anxious, and avoidant traits. Little research has actually addressed whether “domestic stalkers” differ from other stalkers. However,
Conceptual basis for an overlap between stalking and domestic violence
The main feature of domestic stalkers, other than they appear to be more violent than other stalkers, is that they often possess Cluster B personality disorders or characteristics.7 Cluster B personality disorders include narcissistic, antisocial, borderline, and histrionic. The traits of these disorders form
The conceptual bridge between stalking and domestic violence
What has been proposed so far about stalking, drawn from empirical and theoretical bases, is that stalkers often target their former intimate partners, and possess Axis II characteristics of Cluster B personality disorders, as well as other personality disorder traits such as avoidant, dependent, and schizoid. They may have mood disorders such as depression and dysthymia. Stalking may derive from an attachment-based borderline personality that is tinged by jealousy, anger, and depression.
Conclusion
These research suggestions may begin to offer more concrete support for the observations and hypotheses made throughout this paper. It appears that the most typical stalking scenario involves ex-intimate partners. Violence is common in the past relationship, and is common during the stalking episode. Domestic stalkers and certain batterers share a host of common characterological similarities, such as BPOs, jealousy, anger, abandonment rage, poorly integrated ego and primitive defenses,
References (58)
The victims of stalking
The psychology of stalking
The legal perspective on stalking
The Report of the Criminal Harassment Unit: Part II. The Nature and Extent of Criminal Harassment in British Columbia
(1995)Avoidance of intimacy: an attachment perspective
J Soc Pers Relat
(1990)- et al.
Attachment styles among young adults: a test of a four-category model
J Pers Soc Psychol
(1991) - et al.
Family violence and psychiatric disorder
Can J Psychiatry
(1986) - et al.
Stalking behaviors within domestic violence
J Family Violence
(1997) A power primer
Psych Bull
(1992)Stalking behavior and the cycle of domestic violence
J Interpers Violence
(1997)
Psychopathy and Violent Criminal Histories in Male Offenders
A Review of Section 264 (criminal harassment) of the Criminal Code of Canada
Threatening and otherwise inappropriate letters to Members of the United States Congress
J Forensic Sci
Threatening and otherwise inappropriate letters to Hollywood celebrities
J Forensic Sci
The Domestic Assault of Women: Psychological and Criminal Justice Perspectives
A social psychological perspective on impulsivity/intimate violence
The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships
Intimacyanger and insecure attachment as precursors of abuse in intimate relationships
J Appl Soc Psychol
Jealousy, intimate abusiveness, and intrusiveness
J Family Violence
The role of shame and guilt in the intergenerational transmission of violence
Violence Victims
Stalking on campus: the prevalence and strategies for coping with stalking
J Forensic Sci
The relationship between heart rate activity, emotionally aggressive behavior, and general violence in batterers
J Family Psychol
Personality correlates of men who abuse their partners: a cross-validation study
J Family Violence
A large sample empirical typology of male spouse abusers and its relationship to dimensions of abuse
Violence Victims
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised
Psychopathy: a clinical construct whose time has come
Criminal Justice Behav
J Forensic Rep.
Typologies of male batterers: three subtypes and the differences among them
Psychol Bull
Shame: The Power of Caring
Cited by (66)
Effects of and coping strategies for stalking victimisation in Spain: Consequences for its criminalisation
2019, International Journal of Law, Crime and JusticeConceptualising intimate partner violence perpetrators' cognition as aggressive relational schemas
2020, Aggression and Violent BehaviorCitation Excerpt :As illustrated in Table 2, we can derive offence-supportive self-schemas underlying borderline, narcissistic, and antisocial traits from the existing literature. Borderline personality disorder is in part defined by the presence of cognitive factors such as a diffusely negative, relationship-contingent self-schema which can be associated with IPV (Douglas & Dutton, 2001; Dutton, 2007). Empirical research suggests that also antisocial traits correlate with IPV (Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994).
Personality Attributions in the Context of Stalking of Ex-Intimates or Others: A Victim’s Perspective
2024, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyStalking Behaviors Among Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence in Portugal: Correlates and Mediating Variables
2023, European Journal on Criminal Policy and ResearchStalking, narcissistic vulnerability and the application of schema therapy “I was punishing her for me not being good enough”
2023, Journal of Criminal Psychology
- 1
Tel.: +1-604-291-5945.