Introduction: Stalking Behavior in a Global Context

Heng Choon (Oliver) Chan1 and Lorraine Sheridan2

1 Teaching Laboratory for Forensics and Criminology, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR

2 School of Psychology, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia

INTRODUCTION

Stalking is a serious global problem that has attracted considerable interest from academics, practitioners, policy makers, and the general public. Despite its recognition as a ubiquitous offending behavior, there are still much to be learned about this phenomenon. Most knowledge on stalking is accumulated from studies conducted in only a handful of countries (e.g., Australia, the UK, and the US). Very limited research has been conducted in populations outside Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies (see Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). It is only in recent years that there has been an increase in the number of stalking studies conducted within non‐WEIRD populations (e.g., Chan & Sheridan, 2017 on Hong Kongers; Matos et al., 2019 on Portuguese; Sheridan, Arianayagam, & Chan, 2018 on Singaporeans) and comparisons across different countries and cultures (e.g., Sheridan, Scott, & Roberts, 2016 on 12 countries). Even though this is promising, there is still a lack of knowledge coming from under‐researched populations, including Lithuania, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands. Thus, the key purpose of this edited volume is not only to update research findings and best practice from the widely researched populations, but also to advance our knowledge of best practice and research conducted within those rarely studied populations.

THE APPROACH ADOPTED IN THIS BOOK

Numerous attempts to comprehend and explain crime were made long before criminology emerged as a distinct academic discipline. Similar to psychology, which grew from other disciplines such as philosophy, medicine, and physiology, the emergence of criminology also had its roots in other disciplines (Hollin, 2013), particularly in sociology. Criminology has traditionally been housed under sociology and most criminological theories are sociological in nature. Hayward (2005) observed that “Psychology and criminology emerged as distinct disciplines at a very similar historic moment—the latter half of the nineteenth century” (p. 110).

Put simply, psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, while criminology is the scientific study of crime and criminals. Therefore, psychological criminology can be referred to as the convergence of psychology and criminology in that psychological criminology is concerned with the use of psychological knowledge to explain and describe (with the attempt to modify) criminal behavior (Chan & Ho, 2017; Hollin, 2012). By examining personality and social influences, this field of study focuses on individual offending behavior in terms of how the behavior is acquired, evoked, maintained, and modified (Bartol, 2002). In addition to considering societal‐level influences, psychological criminology applies psychological theories to aid understanding of crime and criminals. Wortley (2011) postulated that psychological criminology largely addresses the question: “What is it about the individuals and their experiences that causes them to commit crime and/or to become criminal?” (p. 1).

This psycho‐criminological approach to understanding crime and criminals is particularly relevant to the focus of this edited volume. In this book, we aim to explore the different aspects and dynamics of stalking behavior from a global perspective. The highlight of this edited work is the range of contributions to the comprehensive study of stalking behavior from more than a dozen countries, with most of the sampled populations coming from arguably under‐researched regions (e.g., Lithuania, South Africa, Singapore, Denmark, Germany, and Spain).

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

This edited collection on stalking behavior is written by experienced field practitioners and researchers from 14 countries. With a combined theoretical‐ and practical‐oriented mode, this volume attempts to introduce readers to the core areas of research and practice in this field. This book is arguably the first to offer a global approach to discussing different topics on stalking perpetration and victimization, under three main themes: theories and research, national portraits, and policy and best practice.

With a total of 17 chapters, 6 chapters are structured under the first section on theories and research. In Chapter 1, Fissel and colleagues perform a meticulous review of the existing stalking and cyberstalking literature, with an emphasis on research published within the disciplines of criminology and victimology in the United States. Among other issues, concepts and definitions of stalking and cyberstalking victimization, recent prevalence estimates, and theoretically‐grounded predictors of stalking and cyberstalking victimization are discussed. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research directions. In Chapter 2, Ngo explores the racial differences among Asian, White, and Black victims in the United States in relation to prevalence, nature of stalking, and related coping strategies for stalking victimization. The literature has consistently identified that stalking is a correlate for severe and lethal interpersonal violence. Interpersonal violence victimization among Asian Americans, in general, appears to be seriously underreported in part due to their internalization of traditional sex‐role expectations that tend to attribute greater stigma to victims of violence than to the offenders. A number of significant differences are found in this study among Asian, White, and Black victims in terms of the victim, offender, and incident characteristics.

Chapter 3, written by Laitinen and Nikupeteri, introduces a rarely examined perspective in ex‐partner stalking—that is, the child's perspective. The authors explore Finnish children's experiences of parental ex‐partner stalking, with an emphasis on cases where the father or stepfather stalks the mother. This chapter offers a general understanding of children's experiences pertaining to their knowledge about parental stalking and what action that knowledge induces in them. Grounded by Giddens's (1984) theorization of agency, five overlapping dimensions of children's knowing agency are proposed based on the analysis of the experiences of 19 children—that is, adapting and withdrawing, vacillating, supportive and constructive, responsible and evaluating, and critical and change‐seeking. Chapter 4 by Khader and Chan is written specifically on the cyberstalking phenomenon in Singapore. The authors surveyed a total of 814 university and high‐school equivalent students on the frequency and type of cybervictimization behaviors that they experienced, levels of perceived threat, post‐traumatic symptomology, coping strategies, and attitudes toward future help‐seeking avenues. With prevalence rates ranging from 27.7 to 55.5%, several significant findings are noted in this study.

In Chapter 5, McEwan and Davis synthesize the literature on the use of different typologies in understanding and assessing stalking, and statistically apply the three most commonly used typologies (i.e., Zona, Sharma, & Lane's, 1993 typology; Mullen, Pathé, & Purcell's, 2000 motivational typology; and Mohandie, Meloy, McGowan, & Williams's, 2006 RECON typology) to an Australian sample of stalkers. The primary aim of this chapter is to inform practitioners on which stalking classification system to use when assessing the risk of victimization. In Chapter 6, Scott and colleagues discuss the findings of their survey of 3,803 members of the public from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States on their familiarity with, and understanding of, the respective stalking/harassment legislation in these different jurisdictions. Overall findings suggest that only a minority of participants indicated that they were familiar with the legislation and were able to provide information about their understanding of the legislation. The authors conclude with a call to increase public understanding of legislation in order to increase the probability that victims and those surrounding them are able to accurately identify their experiences as stalking.

The next five chapters are organized under the section on national portraits of stalking phenomena from Lithuania, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and South Africa. In Chapter 7, Laurinaityté and Michailovicˇ examine stalking perceptions, victimization, and anti‐stalking responses in the Lithuanian context. The authors first review Lithuanian anti‐stalking legal regulation and subsequently highlight the available statistics on stalking. The chapter concludes with suggestions on preventive responses to stalking victimization. Chapter 8, written by Subirana‐Malaret and colleagues, provides a distinctive Spanish experience on stalking and intimate partner violence prevention from the ecological and public health perspective. There was no anti‐stalking legislation in Spain until 2015. The authors argue that violence prevention requires a complex and multisectoral...