This Californian law also inspired foreign legislators around the world to criminalize the behavior, including countries such as Australia and Canada. The other American states quickly followed suit, and within three years, all states and the District of Colombia had special criminal anti-stalking laws in place. In reaction to the physical attacks of two famous actresses by their obsessed stalkers, the North-American state of California was the first jurisdiction to create a specific criminal provision to deal with the problem more efficiently (California Penal Code, Section 646.9). The behavior can be perceived by the victim as annoying, threatening, fear-inducing or disturbing.Īlthough stalking is an ancient phenomenon, it was not until the 1990s before it was recognized as a criminal phenomenon in its own right. What characterizes stalking is the repetitive or systematic nature of the behavior, aimed at a specific person, which is unwanted by the targeted person (Mullen et al.
Stalking can be defined as ‘persistent harassment in which one person repeatedly imposes on another unwanted communications and/or contacts’ (Mullen et al. Ortiz-Müller (ed.), Praxis-Handbuch Stalking. A German version of this text will appear as a contribution in the following handbook: W.
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