Harassment and stalking of Members of the United Kingdom Parliament: associations and consequences

A survey concerning intrusive/aggressive behaviours towards MPs was administered at Westminster, and in Queensland, New Zealand and Norway. Follow-up interviews were conducted with a sample at Westminster. This paper examines the experiences and associations of the 239 Westminster responders, of whom 81% had experienced intrusive/aggressive behaviours, 18% been subject to attack/attempted attack, and 53% stalked or harassed. Being stalked and subject to certain types of intrusive/aggressive behaviour were associated with younger age and being in the Commons five years or less, but serious incidents were more common in those who had been MPs for longer. There were no associations with brief periods of harassment. Some differences with party and constituency type emerged. Mental illness was prominent amongst perpetrators. Motives predominantly concerned personal grievances. Significant proportions of MPs suffered psychological ill-effects, necessitating inconvenient behaviour changes. Internal consistencies in these results and similarities to other sites are explored, and their implications discussed.     

Assessing Violence Risk in Stalking Cases: A Regression Tree Approach

Advances in the field of risk assessment have highlighted the importance of developing and validating models for problematic or unique subgroups of individuals. Stalking offenders represent one such subgroup, where fears of and potential for violence are well-known and have important implications for safety management. The present study applies a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) approach to a sample of stalking offenders in order to help further the process of identifying and understanding risk assessment strategies. Data from 204 stalking offenders referred for psychiatric evaluation to a publicly-funded clinic were used to develop and assess putative risk factors. A series of nested models were used to generate tree algorithms predicting violence in this sample of offenders. Both simplified and more extensive models generated high levels of predictive accuracy that were roughly comparable to logistic regression models but much more straightforward to apply in clinical practice. Jack-knifed cross-validation analyses demonstrated considerable shrinkage in the CART, although the models were still comparable to many other actuarial risk assessment instruments. Logistic regression models were much more resilient to cross-validation, with relatively modest loss in predictive power.     

Stalking,harassment and aggressive/intrusive behaviours towards general practitioners: (2) associated factors,motivation, mental illness and effects on GPs

Seventy per cent of general practitioners (GPs) were found in an earlier study to have been subject to aggressive/intrusive behaviours by patients, with nearly 20% stalked and 20% harassed. Using the same sample, an exploration was undertaken of patterns of behaviour, patient characteristics, including mental illness and motivation, GP characteristics, and effects upon them of aggression/intrusion. There were significant differences in patterns of behaviour between stalking and harassment. Nearly half the patients involved were suspected to be mentally ill, including 54.5% of stalking cases. Stalking was significantly associated with intimacy-seeking motivation, and harassment with resentful motivation. No significant associations emerged between sex of patients or GPs and aggressive/intrusive behaviours. Measures of GP time-at-risk were associated with higher prevalence of individual behaviours. GPs’ responses to aggressive/intrusive behaviours included increasing security and changing routines, with small minorities afraid to go out or be at home alone, and a proportion experiencing adverse effects on personal relationships.     

The Prevalence of Sexual Harassment, Stalking, and False Victimization Syndrome (FVS) Cases and Related Human Resource Management Policies in a Cross-Section of Canadian Companies from January 1995 Through January 2000

This study used a questionnaire design to investigate the relative prevalence of reported sexual harassment, stalking, and False Victimization Syndrome (FVS) cases in a cross-section of 46 Canadian companies from January 1995 through January 2000. This study also investigated the number of companies having policies related to these three constructs, inside and outside interventions relied upon by the targets for coping with such aggressive incidents, and the injuries reported by the targets as a result of such incidents. Implications for Human Resource managers are discussed.     

‘Stalking’ – Seeking the victim's perspective

Abstract

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 phenomenon. 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 exemplars of stalking. A cluster analysis of the classification data showed a clear distinction between those which participants felt to be stalking and non-stalking related acts. Further, a number of distinct sub-categories of perceived stalking behaviours were suggested by the analysis. Participants were also asked to indicate whether they had first hood experience of any of these behaviours and to describe their worst personal experience of ‘stalking’. Analysis of this data suggested that instances of what our respondents perceived as ‘stalking’ was widespread in the sample and that some of its more serious manifestations would, if reported, have led to criminal charges. The difficulties of framing legislation, however, to define all the acts which our respondents saw as ‘stalking’ remain.     

Parental bonding and adult attachment styles in different types of stalker

Attachment theory is one of the earliest and most vigorously promoted explanations of the psychological processes that underlie stalking behavior. Insecure attachment has been proposed as impairing the management of relationships, thus increasing the propensity to stalk. The current study explored the parental bonding and adult attachment styles of 122 stalkers referred to a specialist forensic clinic. Stalkers were grouped according to two common classification methods: relationship and motivation. Compared to general community samples, stalkers were more likely to remember their parents as emotionally neglectful and have insecure adult attachment styles, with the degree of divergence varying according to stalker type and mode of classification. In offering support for the theoretical proposition that stalking evolves from pathological attachment, these findings highlight the need to consider attachment in the assessment and management of stalkers. Also emphasized is the importance of taking classification methods into account when interpreting and evaluating stalking research.     

Assessment of violence risk in youth for juvenile court: relevant factors for clinical judgment

BACKGROUND: Assessment of violence risk in youth for juvenile court needs to be improved. AIM: To determine which items of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) are recorded in pre-trial mental health evaluations and which of these items are associated with the clinical judgment of the risk of violent recidivism. METHOD: A total of one hundred forensic diagnostic juvenile court files were rated with regard to the presence or absence of the thirty SAVRY risk items: ten historical, six contextual and eight individual items, and six protective items. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to examine the relationship between SAVRY risk items and the clinical judgment of violence risk. RESULTS: Most SAVRY-items had been recorded in the files. However, five historical items and the contextual item 'rejection by peers' did not appear in 25-62% of the files. Especially SAVRY items like 'negative-attitudes' and 'psychopathic traits' were the most powerful predictors for clinical judgment of high violence risk. Unexpectedly, historical items played a minor role in clinical judgment. CONCLUSION: Prospective research is needed with the use of SAVRY-items to improve evidence based violence risk assessment in court ordered mental health evaluations of youngsters.     

A Comparative Test of Clinical Judgment Versus Actuarial Prediction of Future Violence

This study tested how graduate level psychology graduate students (n = 20) using the Adapted Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (Adapted VRAG) would do relative to practicing psychologists/psychiatrists (n = 16) using clinical judgment when predicting violence in 10 narratives from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment study (Monahan et al., The MacArthur violence risk assessment study. . Retrieved 10 Oct 2005). Results indicated that the practicing psychologists/psychiatrists made significantly more correct predictions than the master’s level students. The professional group demonstrated sensitivity levels of 77.7% and specificity of 96.3%. For the use of the adapted VRAG method by the graduate student group, specificity levels were modest at 54.0%. Sensitivity levels, however, were lower than earlier demonstrated levels at 58.0%. These findings are at variance with earlier reports comparing clinical and actuarial methods. The results may reflect the short amount of time the master’s level students were trained using the Adapted VRAG as well as the small number of participants in this study. Additional research comparing other professions is recommended, as well as examining if experience in the forensics field would affect one’s ability to predict violence.     

Stalking and Huntington’s Disease: A Neurobiological Link?

This case report describes a patient with Huntington's Disease (HD) who allegedly stalked her therapist. The patient developed recurrent thoughts about her therapist as well as amorous feelings towards her therapist. She engaged in stalking behavior including unwelcome gifts, multiple telephone calls to the therapist's office and home, and making threats towards the therapist. The patient continued to contact the therapist after the therapist filed a Personal Protection Order. The patient was successfully treated with risperidone and fluvoxamine. Through a focused review of the relevant literature, the authors explore the potential relationship between the patient's obsessional thoughts, amorous feelings towards her therapist, the basal ganglia dysfunction, and the stalking behavior. The authors posit a hypothesis of stalking as a novel early manifestation of HD in this patient. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first reported case of stalking occurring with potentially causal organic lesions.     

Latent Profile Approach to Duration of Stalking

Abstract: Stalking behavior and victim–stalker relationship are often the principal known factors in a stalking case. Thus, they are of great importance when trying to identify factors contributing to stalking duration. The present study aims to identify distinct subgroups of stalking victims based on measures of behavioral stalking dimensions. These victim subgroups, stalking dimensions, and victim–stalker relationship are examined in relation to stalking duration. Using a sample of 137 university students, latent profile analysis (LPA) revealed five distinct victim subgroups based on stalker behavior dimensions: surveillance, low‐profile, social lurker, wide scope, and baseline stalkers. The subgroups were significantly related to stalking duration and explained a considerable amount of the variance along with the stalking dimensions and victim–stalker relationship. Connections to stalking literature and utility of person‐orientated methods in stalking research are discussed.