An Invisible Threat

Stalking: AN INVISIBLE THREAT

Part1: Prevalence

Stalking in America is a major problem. Attention towards stalking occurred as a result of celebrities who were being stalked. In the past decade 50 states have passed anti-stalking laws. The study of stalkers has been limited to a small number of clinical samples. There is a lack of empirical data that exists on stalkers and on the issue of stalking. The major questions that are discussed within a major national study on stalking include the prevalence of stalking in the United States, who stalks whom, and how often stalkers overtly threaten their victims. Other questions within the study included how often stalking is reported to the police, as well as what are the psychological consequences of stalking.

What is stalking?
Stalking is considered threatening and harassing behavior which is carried out repeatedly. Common practices include threatening behaviors such as appearing at the individual’s home, their place of work, their business, making harassing phone calls, vandalizing the individual’s property and cyber-stalking, which is bombarding someone with e-mails, instant messages, and other forms of communication. With the advancement of technology, stalkers have newer ways of conducting the stalking.

While stalking differs from states to states, the following is taken from the New York State Penal Code for stalking. If anyone wants more information, please look at the National Center for Victims of Crime (http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_Register204) .

Legal Definitions of Stalking
Stalking differs in each state. The CUNY prevention-based sexual assault policy outlines New York State Law on stalking. In addition Safe Horizon’s website provides more in-depth information on stalking and services for individuals who feel they are being stalked. Legally most states do present stalking within the context of someone who is willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly following the individual.

Prevalence
· Stalking is more prevalent within the United States than was thought prior.
8% of women and 2% of men are stalked within their lifetime. Around 1,006,970 women and 370,990 men have been stalked within their lifetime. As suggested by Tjaden and Thoenness stalking needs to be considered a public health as well as a public health concern
· Invisible Groups: Alaska Native women as well as American Indian women were considered to more likely to report being stalked than any other racial groups
· Stalking cuts across gender. However 78% of stalking victims are female and 87% are male
· Adults between the ages of 18-29 are the primary targets and make up over 52% of all victims
· Perpetrators who stalk are known to the victim(Lack of research exists within the field of stalking by intimate partners/relevant for sexual assault and intimate partner violence incidents)
· Strong link exists between forms of violence in intimate relationships.
· Average Stalking Case lasts about 1.8 years. Approximately 1/5 of the victims move away from
31% of victims who were cohabiting with their partner and were stalked were also sexually assaulted. Approximately 1 out of 3
Stalking rates were highest among Spouse/Ex Spouse relationships. Interestingly for stalking carried out by a stranger, more males reported being stalked by females.
· Less than 50% of the stalking victims are actually directly threatened by their stalkers but they do feel an intense level of fear.
· Deplorably less than half actually report their stalking to the police and only in ¼ cases are the suspects actually arrested. Only 12% of stalking cases actually result in any conviction
· From all of the victims who did receive restraining orders, approximately 69 percent of the women and 81 percent of the men said their stalkers violated the order.
· Only 30 percent of female stalking victims and 20 percent of male stalking victims seek psychological counseling as a result of their victimization

College-Aged Women
· In another study the sexual victimization of college women they found that in a survey of the rates of women on college campuses(156.5 per 1,000 female students). On a college campus approximately 13.1 percent of the female students had been stalked. This challenges the National Survey as women within the college age population.
· Within the same study women were stalked by a boyfriend (42.5percent), classmate(24.5 percent), acquaintance(10.3percent), friend(5.6percent)

This blog is followed by two other blogs that look at cyberstalking and how such research can be employed towards the policy.



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Stalking, Privacy, and What we Can Do

Part2:Stalking, Privacy, and What we Can Do By Rabbea Jabbar

Instead of shutting down our face books because we fear stalkers, we can find ways to protect our privacy and keep our face book information to a bare minimum, so our private lives are not being completely revealed. Although the face book stalking trend is a new phenomenon mostly common among females, face book does allow in many ways to help you protect your privacy and control the information you share with others. This allows your privacy not to be compromised.

Caroline Harting says, “Facebook was stalking me”. Many face book users are leaving face book due to fear of privacy. However, stalking does not start or end on face book.
If your stalker has been verbally warned by you and still does not leave you alone, instead of negotiating with your stalker, call the Unlawful Call Center at 1 (800) 518-5507. Familiarize yourself with a 24 hour store; never go home alone, if you are being stalked. Inform friends, family members, co workers, and neighbors about your stalker. Save any text messages, voice mails and threatening letters. If you have a restraining order against your stalker, carry a copy with you at all times. Also save a picture of your stalker, if you have any, and give it to friends and family members. You can have your name removed from any adverse directories. Avoid calling toll free 800, 866, 888, 877, and 900 numbers, or use a pay phone of you decide to call a toll free number, so that your phone number is not captured in the Automatic Number Identification. Order “Complete Blocking” or “per line” blocking so that your home phone number is not disclosed when you make phone calls from home, and keep a log of every stalking incident.

Many victims fail to report about their stalker, and when they do decide to file a police report months later, many police officers are likely to not take the victims seriously. It's very important to not let a police officer intimidate you. Once you call 911, and you are afraid to leave your house, have a police officer come to your house. Be polite, persistent and provide the officer with as much details as possible. Although every stalking case is unique in its own way, every little piece of evidence matters. Do not let an officer leave your house without giving you a report number. If one police report does not work, you may need to file multiple police reports, and make more phone calls if necessary. Also remember that stalkers are unpredictable. They act on their impulses. They are also very likely to pretend to be the victim after being reported. 90-95% of the time they will portray to be the victim. Become involved! VISIT CUNYSGC.COM!

How Should CUNY employ the data from research

Part3: How Should CUNY employ the data from the research

The previous two studies that have been cited provide us as CUNY students with a piece of the framework we should think of in terms of the prevention-based sexual assault policy. (Please watch the townhall meeting for further information at CUNYSGC.COM.) As we are aware the policy incorporates pieces on stalking. As seen in the two studies, stalking is highest among ages 18-29, which definitely fits the age demographics of CUNY. Within the second study that looked at stalking among college-aged women, they found a higher rate of stalking among college-aged females. We also know there is an overlap between domestic violence, sexual assault, and incidents of stalking. We need to also think about male victims of stalking and the LGBT population, as well as our large immigrant population, which includes undocumented students. This is where we must address the issue of marginal populations and invisible populations. We have to understand that when it comes to the support network and the access to services, we as CUNY students must divert from the general model where certain populations are deemed victims and thus have access to services. What I mean by this is realistically we know that there are certain populations-males, LGBT, immigrants, undocumented, special needs population-have a more difficult time accessing services. Therefore while the prevention-based policy includes the pieces on stalking, it is a beginning not an end. This is why it is so important to make sure we have advocates that are trained on these different issues where they can assist students.

In addition stalking just like sexual assault and intimate partner violence are not one-size fits all models. Therefore we must challenge ourselves to think beyond just categories where we separate things such as sexual assault, incidents of stalking and domestic violence, for as we have seen from the studies they are occurring simultaneously, which further complicates the situation. The fact that anyone is being stalked negatively impacts their ability to academically excel while places them in fear. This also corrodes our own sense of safety. Educational institutions are places where we want to have the social atmosphere where we feel safe and comfortable. The act of stalking violates that very personal space of safety. Therefore it is up to us as students to generate a dialogue around these issues where we think beyond the regular framework as domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking are different. While the policy is important and plays a vital role in affirming that the CUNY system will not tolerate it, it is us the CUNY student who must stand at the forefront and help our fellow students.

COMPLETE TOWN HALL VIDEO IS UP!

SGC is excited to finally bring you the full video of the Queens College Town hall that took place on October 22nd.

The video is located on our website. Feel free to leave comments, it is imperative that you weigh in on the policy that will affect YOU!

Also note the featured video of our interview with Jessica Spector from the Urban Justice Center that took place after the town hall.


To Building a Greater CUNY!

SGC



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BREAKING NEWS: TASKFORCE STALLS IN MEETING FOR NOVEMBER

The CUNY Sexual Assault Policy Taskforce was supposed to have met by now. In fact, dates were proposed well before the Queens College Townhall for the taskforce to meet at the end of October- first week in November. So why hasn't the taskforce met?

Because the policy is still being shown to other groups outside of CUNY at the expense of a third and final townhall for CUNY students!

It was understandable to forego another townhall because the Board of Trustees needed to have the policy go through one or more of its committees in November before it's full meeting on November 22nd. It is not, however, acceptable to have preferential treatment for outside groups to be able to comment on the policy when CUNY students are not given yet another chance (which is actually an agreement within the original proposal and located in the minutes of the taskforce early on, published in this SGC post. )

SGC Chair and taskforce member Elischia Fludd is currently advocating for the taskforce to uphold its promise and commit to a 3rd townhall since CUNY students, the largest stakeholders of this policy, have been disregarded to favor the opinion of outside groups. 

To building a Greater CUNY,

SGC

Become involved! VISIT CUNYSGC.COM!

DRUG FACILITATED SEXUAL ASSAULT

"Rape drugs make it relatively easy for rapists to gain control of their victims. Perpetrators do not have to overcome any form of resistance. They do not have to use physical force. They do not have to threaten to harm the victim to get compliance. Nor do they have to be concerned about a victim's screams attracting attention. The drugs they administer immobilize and silence the victim. (National Institute of Justice Journal, 2000)"

In July 2007, the Department of Justice released the results of a national study that looked at the prevalence of drug-facilitated and incapacitated sexual assault and forcible rape. The results were astonishing and deplorable. Estimates have found that nearly 673,000 women in colleges were raped. From the 673,000, 160,000 women experienced drug-facilitated sexual assault. And more than 200,000 women were incapacitated. The major issue with drug-facilitated-sexual-assault is that many victims have no idea whether they were drugged. In order to take legal recourse, the individual must present themselves at a hospital where they can screen for drugs. However, the window period is very short for most of these drugs leave the body, and once they leave the body, evidence cannot be collected for the purpose of taking legal recourse.

The problem that exists in cases of drug-facilitated sexual assault or where the victim is incapacitated is many victims may not recognize that they have been raped. Even if they know they were forced, the fact that either they were under the influence of drugs or their assailant was means for them the lines of accountability may get blurry. For example recently there was a case where a young-college aged woman stated she had went to a party and a guy asked to hook up with her. She said no to him, and then he lured her into a room by begging her to help him with an emergency. She did so and he raped her. She wasn't really clear whether it was rape or not because the assailant had been drunk. In this case the victim was not incapacitated or under the influence of drugs but the assailant was and he used that to his advantage telling her that at parties it is normal for people to have sex. While she knew that something was wrong, it was difficult for her to label it rape.

Such hesitancy to frame it as rape as well as to blame one-self for what happened has translated into low rates of reporting. For example for sexual assault cases for women in colleges, the reporting rate is 12%. The number is ever smaller for victims of drug-facilitated sexual assault who report. Some of the reasons why college-aged women do not take action against the perpetrator include not wanting their peers and social-support systems to know about the rape, the fear of retaliation, the uncertainty about whether a crime actually occurred, and the victim may not be sure whether the crime was serious enough to report. Again within drug-facilitated sexual assault cases, most victims know their perpetrators.

From the perspective of perpetrators, Abbey, Parkhhill, Clinton-Sherrod, Zawacki (2007), in their study compared men who committed sexual assaults found that on the contrary to what social views may think, perpetrators usually pick the victims and then isolate them from their friends or social circle. The perpetrators will often come off as if they are rescuing the victim by offering an incapacitated individual(drunk, high, or passed out) to what they will convey to the victim as a safe place. Perpetrators will use the fact that the victim was intoxicated to convince them their assault was consensual or normal, and that is how things are. This is even if the victim remembers. An overwhelming majority of these perpetrators are repeat offenders who have targeted multiple victims. Therefore contrary to what society may think when perpetrators who commit such assaults do it because they are incapacitated is misleading and is another place for perpetrators to have the space to commit rapes and violate others without having to worry about the consequences. It is important to mention that while the statistics in the national study focused on college-aged women, men are also victims of drug facilitated sexual assaulted.

However we can stand firm and work to prevent such incidents from occurring. We can be more attentive when we are out in social gatherings, at parties, in clubs, and bars. We can educate men and women about the devestating crime the drug facilitated sexual assault is and the physical as well as psychological scars that victims will suffer from. On the most basic level we can start by changing our own attitudes towards drug-facilitated-sexual assault where we usually place the blame on the victim rather than giving them the social support, which can be instrumental in the recovery process.

Queens College Townhall Update

Warm Greetings!

SGC would like to extend a round of thank you's to the following people for making the town hall a success:

SGC Project Manager for the Town hall: Dear Auneatitrakul
Co-Sponsors: Queen's College Democratic Student Alliance (DSA)
Moderator: Natalie Shields 
Town hall volunteers: Andrew  DeMasters, Joanna Lund-Pops, Roland Regos, Samantha  Shlimbaum, Diana Hidalgo, Asna Erfan and Mike Cabajal
Queens College Student Affairs Administrator Dr. Joe
Panelists: Kristen Bowes, CUNY Associate General Counsel; Nick Kanellopolous, City College Alumnae; Jessica Spector, Urban Justice Institute; and Jerin Alam, Hunter College Alumna.
CUNY Central for concerted efforts in advertising the event throughout CUNY news and for providing refreshments
Queens College Student Association for extending a hand of solidarity in this effort

Last but not least and special thanks goes to the approximate 40 CUNY students, faculty, alumni and administration that attended the town hall! CUNY members came out from all over, including Kingsborough, John Jay, Hunter and Queens College.

SGC looks forward to updating you with the video of the town hall and personal reaction interviews that took place following the event.

We have the policy open for comments on our website , as well as a poll and a petition in favor of the current policy draft.

NEXT STEPS include a taskforce meeting to review student input, giving the policy over to the Board of Trustee committee for review and the voting of the policy at the November Board of Trustee's meeting.

To building a Greater CUNY,

Elischia Fludd
Chair
Students for a Greater CUNY (SGC)









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