National Review of Stalking Laws and Implementation Practices in the United States, 1998-2001 (ICPSR 3411)

Version Date: Mar 30, 2006

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Principal Investigator(s):
Neal Miller, Institute for Law and Justice

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03411.v1

Version V1

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Summary

This study was designed to clarify the status of stalking laws and their implementation needs. To accomplish this, the principal investigator conducted a survey of police and prosecutor agencies across the country to determine how stalking laws were being implemented. While there had been significant federal support for state and local agencies to adopt anti-stalking laws and implement anti-stalking initiatives, no comprehensive review of the status of such efforts had been done. Thus, there had been no way of knowing what additional measures might be needed to enhance local anti-stalking efforts. Two national surveys on stalking were conducted. The first survey of 204 law enforcement agencies (Part 1, Initial Law Enforcement Survey Data) and 222 prosecution offices (Part 3, Initial Prosecutor Survey Data) in jurisdictions with populations over 250,000 was conducted by mail in November of 1998. The survey briefly asked what special efforts the agencies had undertaken against stalking, including special units, training, or written policies and procedures. A replication of the first national survey was conducted in November of 2000. Part 2, Follow-Up Law Enforcement Survey Data, contains the follow-up data for law enforcement agencies and Part 4, Follow-Up Prosecutor Survey Data, contains the second survey data for prosecutors. Parts 1 to 4 include variables about the unit that handled stalking cases, types of stalking training provided, written policies on stalking cases, and whether statistics were collected on stalking and harassment. Parts 2 and 4 also include variables about the type of funding received by agencies. Part 4 also contains variables about other charges that might be filed in stalking cases, such as harassment, threats, criminal trespass, and protection order violation.

Citation

Miller, Neal. National Review of Stalking Laws and Implementation Practices in the United States, 1998-2001. [distributor], 2006-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03411.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (97-WT-VX-0007)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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Time Period(s)

1998 -- 2001

Data Collection Notes

  1. The user guide, codebook, and data collection instruments are provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

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Study Purpose

Stalking has gained considerable attention from the mass media. However, notwithstanding a sizable literature about stalking as a legal construct and as a medical issue, systematic information about this crime and what has been done about it was largely missing. Most significantly, a policy analysis of what needed to be done to improve anti-stalking investigation, prosecution, and provision of services to stalking victims was totally absent. This study of the status of stalking laws and their implementation in the United States was conducted to fill this knowledge gap. The premises for this research are that stalking is a serious crime against persons and that it is widely prevalent. While there had been significant federal support for state and local agencies to adopt anti-stalking laws and implement anti-stalking initiatives, no comprehensive review of the status of such efforts had been done. Thus, there had been no way of knowing what additional measures might be needed to enhance local anti-stalking efforts. This study was designed to clarify the status of stalking laws and their implementation needs. To accomplish this goal, the principal investigator conducted a survey of police and prosecutor agencies across the country to determine how stalking laws were being implemented.

Study Design

Two national surveys on stalking were conducted. The first survey of 204 law enforcement agencies (Part 1, Initial Law Enforcement Survey Data) and 222 prosecution offices (Part 3, Initial Prosecutor Survey Data) in jurisdictions with populations over 250,000 was conducted by mail in November of 1998. The survey briefly asked what special efforts the agencies had undertaken against stalking, including special units, training, or written policies and procedures. Mail reminders were sent to nonrespondent agencies six weeks after the initial mailing. A replication of the first national survey was conducted in November of 2000. Part 2, Followg-Up Law Enforcement Survey Data, contains the follow-up data for law enforcement agencies and Part 4, Follow-Up Prosecutor Survey Data, contains the second survey data for prosecutors. The survey mailing was identical to that conducted in 1998 except that the municipal prosecutor agencies that had reported no responsibility for handling stalking cases were dropped from the survey. Telephone follow-ups were conducted for nonrespondents in March of 2001.

Sample

Not applicable.

Universe

All law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in jurisdictions with more than 250,000 people.

Unit(s) of Observation

Parts 1 and 2: Law enforcement agencies. Parts 3 and 4: Prosecutors.

Data Source

mailback questionnaires

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

Parts 1-4 include variables about the unit that handled stalking cases, types of stalking training provided, written policies on stalking cases, and whether statistics were collected on stalking and harassment. Parts 2 and 4 also include variables about the type of funding received by agencies. Part 4 also contains variables about other charges that might be filed in stalking cases, such as harassment, threats, criminal trespass, and protection order violation.

Response Rates

For Parts 1 and 3, the surveys had about a 60- percent response rate to the first mailing. A second mailing was sent out to the nonrespondents, resulting in a final response rate of over 80 percent. For Parts 2 and 4, the combined response rate was 82 percent.

Presence of Common Scales

None.

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Original Release Date

2002-11-27

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Miller, Neal. NATIONAL REVIEW OF STALKING LAWS AND IMPLEMENTATION PRACTICES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1998-2001. ICPSR version. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Law and Justice [producer], 2002. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03411.v1

2006-03-30 File CQ3411.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.

2002-11-27 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created online analysis version with question text.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.