Victim Classifications

This category is widely debated amongst professional groups, advocates, and even victims. The debate being simply that this category should be combined with other partner stalking or broken up further as stalking has been found to occur after the relationship has ended for 43% of women (McFarlane, et al., 1999). 

We will attempt to do what is best for our community. We have chosen to define ex-intimates as: those who have ended a non-platonic relationship and are no longer living with that person.

In Maryland, 49.1% of stalking offenders were identified as former intimate or current partners during a female victim's lifetime (Smith, et al., 2017).

Previous research found stalking by an intimate partner occurred before the relationship ended for 21% of women and occurred both before and after the relationship ended for 36% of women (McFarlane, et al., 1999).

This category is also widely debated amongst professional groups, advocates, and even victims. The debate being simply that this category should be combined or that stalking cannot commence until one is residing in a separate residence. 

We will attempt to do what is best for our community. We define "partner" as those who are still in some type of defined committed, intimate, relationship, and/or, living with that person. 

This can include parents, siblings, extended family members, and children, among others.

This can include casual social encounters or other associations. This includes neighbors, historically one of the highest categories for male victims, such as an overblown neighborhood dispute taken too far by a resentful stalker (Mullen, et al., 2009). Intimacy seekers and incompetent stalkers may seek casual acquaintances. However, rejected stalkers may attack a casual acquaintance after the dissolution of a casual friendship.

In Maryland, 34.3% of stalking offenders were identified as an acquaintance during a female victim's lifetime (Smith, et al., 2017).

*It should be noted the definition of acquaintance can vary widely between study/researcher.*

This category includes health and mental health care providers, lawyers, and teachers, among others. These professions are particularly vulnerable to stalking, given their direct contact with client/patients, and the ways in which they provide services, including providing extended, on-going services, direct, personal, care, and employing empathic techniques that can be misconstrued. Additionally, when clients are displeased with services resentment can be an outcome (Mullen, et al., 2009). 

External workplace: stalking is stalking that arises outside of the workplace, such as IPV/DV ex-intimate, or partner, stalking that then enters the workplace and disrupts the employee and/or their work-environment, including coworkers. These are usually rejected stalkers, and make up about half of workplace stalking incidents (Mullen, et al.)

Internal workplace: stalking is stalking that arises within a work context, such as a coworker, a superior, provider, or occasionally a customer (but these are usually professional contacts).

Some victims may not know they have a stalker prior to being made aware either by happenstance or by introduction (Mullen, et al., 2009).  These are usually intimacy seekers or incompetent suitors. The feeling is that while persistent, they are less likely to be violent, but can be known to make threats, and can act violently if they are repeatedly rebuffed. Typically, sexually predatory stalker victims will experience severe but short-lived attention compared to other types of victims, though their level of awareness has to be taken into account.

It is possible for a victim to have a stalker and be unaware of who their stalker is, or their motive, this is different from a stranger in that it has not been determined who they are or what they intend.

Victims in these cases are known primarily through their celebrity or public profile, including entertainers, sports stars, writers, models, socialites, politicians, heads of state, radio-personalities, etc. Particularly in the Metro-area, Maryland has numerous political figures who have attracted the attention of stalkers with numerous agendas.

A secondary victim may become emotionally, financially, or physically injured intentionally or unintentionally by the stalker. The secondary victim can be in the wrong place at the wrong time or be used as a pawn. The stalker can be negligent, thoughtless, careless, or reckless. They may also intentionally do harm to this person. One study from 2005 suggested that secondary-partner-victims of stalking victims were pursued often, and accounted for 3% of the total victim population. Furthermore, pets can be injured or killed in the process. 

Mullen, et al. (2009) found that stalkers can themselves become victims of stalking. Additionally, other unusual targets may include celebrity murderers or other high-profile individuals who attract unwanted attention, even during incarceration. 

The breakdown of a close relationship. 

The victim is primarily an ex-intimate. Occasionally, a close associate, i.e. best friend, long term therapist.

The goal is reconciliation or revenge (can fluctuate). The stalking becomes a substitute for the relationship.

The stalker feels there was an injustice or humiliation, this can arise from mental illness. The victim may be an acquaintance or stranger, having attracted attention due to their actions or something/one they represent. This accounts for a sizable portion of workplace stalking. They desire revenge or validation. This may continue because of the feelings of power and control they garner from their harassment.  

The stalker may be feeling a sense of loneliness or lack of love. This may be driven by a major mental illness. The victim may be a stranger or acquaintance. Initially the motivation may be to establish a relationship. The delusion may cause the stalker to sustain the fantasy of love with ever increasing levels of threats in the face of continued rejection.

Emerges out of loneliness or lust. Victims are often strangers or acquaintances. The motivation is to establish contact in the hope of friendship, or a sexual relationship. They are either blind or indifferent to the disinterest or distress of the victim. These are usually brief pursuits but can become more intense in which case they become rejected or resentful.

Usually deviant sexual practices. Victims are strangers, usually women, children, or public figures. These stalkers can be violent. The goal is to gain information, sexual gratification, and/or prepare for an attack which is usually sexual. Their continued pursuit is based on voyeurism, fantasizing and rehearsing the attack, a sense of power, and sadism.