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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Global problem
The following graphic comes from India, but the data it contains could just as well be representative of almost any country in the World, with minor variations in specifics. Ditto for the graph from the UK, beneath it.
Instead of 1 out of 6 women: 8 out of 10. While that is particularly alarming, the growth rate is similar.
Typical of most countries: stalking was not even tracked until late 1990s
Stalking and Stalking Victims
According to FBI statistics, 7.5 million stalking cases took place in 2016, but half of all stalking goes unreported, according to the National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center. Reported stalking has been increasing at the rate of roughly 1M each year since 2014 (about 18% per annum). Curiously, those not reported but which resulted in criminal mischief, violence, kidnapping, or murder, also tend not to be included; statistics are attributed to those crimes, instead. Roughly 1/3 of all stalking victims are men, where almost all stalkers are men. Even law enforcement and military personnel can be stalked, or be stalkers.
While the majority are stalked by persons with intimate knowledge of the victim, such that total victimization is ‘easier,’ stalking by strangers tends to be done by psychotic personalities who are capable of more severe emotional harm, more creative and harmful financial woes, and more heinous forms of violence. Stalking is such a serious crime that the Center for Disease Control has actually researched and written a paper on it, seeing it as some kind of nebulous social disease. However, their report includes the broader category of sexual violence, a portion of which does not involve stalking as defined by FBI. For example, date rape, which seldom involves stalking.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that 11% of stalking victims are stalked five years or more, while nearly half of victims are stalked for at least six months. A special category called ‘organized’ or ‘gang stalking’ tends to be ‘for life.’ This is consistent with the statistics regarding why stalking ends (when it does), in that roughly half are ended because of third party interventions (Police, Lawyers/Courts, and family/friends), and these interventions take months to accomplish usefully. Relocation to another community is the next most useful method of ending the affair. But relocation does not always work, and not just because the stalker follows or hunts their victim down. That is most certainly true of gang stalking, which tends to involve whole nation-wide networks.
Organized stalking can also be a case where the primary stalker has engaged cohorts or helpers, often at distance. One aspect of stalking which is quite common but not considered in statistics anywhere, is ‘gas lighting,’ which is when the stalker spreads malicious rumors designed to recruit helpers into participating in psychological punishment (i.e., ostracization), or recruitment efforts to directly aid in the stalking.
This factor can result in victims who are stalked multiple times over time, after short periods of ‘escape’ by relocation. Once reacquired, the stalking resumes, typically with new players. Mr. Sweeney has had many clients who have been stalked for decades in this manner. Sans any attempt by law enforcement to maintain useful statistics on stalking suicides or organized stalking as a separate category, the trace evidence suggests it a primary factor in stalking victim suicides.
While every State has stalking laws, there is little consistent application or relief under the Law. In many cases, the victims feel as if they were being treated like a rape victim, eyed with suspicion that they somehow encouraged or were responsible for the actions of the perpetrator. This is one of the main reasons so many stalking incidents are never reported to Police, at all, and why far too many end up in murder or other violence.
About half of victims report Police taking no useful action whatsoever, even where the suspect had a criminal record or multiple incidents or there were eye witnesses available. Unless some OTHER crime had also been committed, such as breaking and entering, or assault, Police investigation is quite unlikely. In Mr. Sweeney’s personal stalking, Police never questioned witnesses he provided, and the Police Report revealed the responding Officer had dismissed the incident as baseless, even though confirmed by his Wife. Had he not been able to make use of his back-channel connections with FBI, the resulting series of attempts on his life which followed might not have been thwarted. Calling in favors from on high was his best weapon, a tool unavailable to almost all stalking victims.
Roughly 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men will experience stalking in their lifetime, such that they feared for their life or the life of another (i.e., their child). Most stalkers inflict themselves on victims at least once a week, typically using more than one method. Organized stalking is typically daily, several times a day in many cases, though such incidents can be extremely subtle in nature… psychological stabs called ‘street theater.’ About a third of stalkers have stalked other persons, before, and are as result exceedingly good at it. Where psychopaths are involved, the stalking skills and cunningness displayed is off the chart.
Here is where it really hurts: one in four stalking victims contemplate suicide as their only hope of escape. 81% of women victims suffer physical assault, about a third are raped. Murder is a big part of the problem. As earlier intoned, no agency tracks stalking which involves murder, the crime counted only in the later category. However, operating under grants from multiple government agencies, a study was conducted by reviewing a finite group of several hundred femicide case files. Looking at both attempted and successful femicides, they found stalking was present in 76% of murders and 85% of attempted murders of women. Fully half of these victims had reported stalking to Police beforehand. Projected against all murders of women by men, that equates to more than 1,200 a year.
That’s roughly 3 a day, every day, that a stalker kills.
The cost of stalking includes a total rewrite of the victim’s lifestyle; they loose almost all freedoms and conveniences we take for granted. Especially where organized stalking or stalking by strangers is involved, the impact can be far reaching. Below are a few examples of what a victim might need do to deal with perceived or real threats, all of which are implied or explicit within the nature of their stalking experience. Fear drives every defensive action, and each action takes away freedom. The worst is this: outwardly, third party persons take these as signs of paranoiac or schizophrenic behavior… even when… perhaps especially when advised about the seemingly invisible stalking.
Sadly, asking for help is therefore often the worst thing a victim can do, when stalked.
Victims must avoid…
- leaving their home unaccompanied (where the most frightened victims are those who live alone, and therefore, have a more difficult time of arranging for escorts);
- answering the door, or a phone call from an unknown caller I.D. Crank calls, and calls to see if the victim is at home are a primary tool of many stalkers. More sophisticated stalkers manipulate cell phones to ‘listen in’ without a ring, or even turn on cameras in cell phones, and snoop into any emails and data present;
- having or freely using a computer online, for the same reasons as they might avoid using a cell phone, above. Hacking is a common stalker weapon;
- making new friends. Over time, they loose existing friends who seem unable or unwilling to cope with what is perceived as paranoiac tendencies — they, after all, may never have personally seen any stalking activity, and no one wants to believe in the Boogey Man (also what tends to lead to any lack of action by law enforcement). Too, relationships are easily sabotaged by a clever stalker;
- having or seeking a significant other — they cannot safely have a love life. There is no way to meet new people safely, and just as with friends, it is sometimes difficult to retain existing relationships. Loneliness leads to additional pressure towards depression;
- being employed. While a given victim might, with great effort, maintain or find a workplace where they might feel safe, they would not feel safe traveling to seek or undertake the job, especially if requiring the use of public transportation. In organized stalking, and in many workplaces or job types, it is impossible to prevent stalking events in the workplace, itself;
- maintaining a drivers license and a car. For some victims, they feel just as insecure in a vehicle by themselves as they might in public transportation. They fear their vehicle might break down, or worse, be sabotaged, stranding them at the mercy of their stalker;
- for some, using a window, or their own yard. Some leave windows shuttered, and fear going outside even in a fenced yard, which not only deprives them of any useful access to nature and fresh air, but further adds to depression and, in some cases, ill health;
- call a repairman to the home. This is perhaps less an issue for all but organized stalking victims, who tend to fear all strangers, having been betrayed by many, before. Even victims of a single stalker can end up adopting such fears.
The list could be longer. No wonder many victims of long-term and organized stalking end up feeling there is no way for them to feel comfortable among the general population. It is these persons FWS hopes foremost to help through establishment of FWH. That, and hyper-electrosensitivity sufferers who can suffer very uncomfortable or painful physical sensations and debilitating loss of mental acuity because of high radio energy and electromagnetic ‘fog’ common in modern society.
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