Tiny proportion of stalking cases recorded by police, data suggests
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Version 0 of 1. Only a tiny proportion of all stalking cases are recorded by police, figures have suggested, leading to calls for more training for police to recognise the crime and provide support to victims. There were 7,706 cases of stalking recorded between 1 April 2013 and 4 February 2016 by all police forces in England and Wales, according to a large-scale freedom of information (FOI) request by the charity the Suzy Lamplugh trust. However, 4.9% of women and 2.4% of men aged 16 to 59, or 1.1 million people, said they have experienced stalking over a period of one year, according to the British Crime Survey 2015. This suggests that a tiny fraction of all cases of stalking were either reported to police, or recorded as stalking when after being reported. The Suzy Lamplugh trust says only about half of victims go to the police. The FOI release follows news on Sunday that Lily Allen was the victim of stalking for seven years. The singer was critical of the police’s handling of the case, telling the Observer she was made to feel like a “nuisance not a victim”. She added: “I want answers from the police. If they treat me like this, how the hell are they going to treat everyone else?” Rachel Griffin, director of the Suzy Lamplugh trust, said Allen’s experience was common. “We know from talking to victims that they often really struggle to have their stalking experience recognised by the police. “One of the things we often hear on the helpline is that someone will have reported stalking, which often has an online element, and they’ll say: ‘The police have said just don’t check your emails or why are you still on the internet?’ It’s a cyber version of victim-blaming. Then you’ll have people who report that police said to them: ‘Come back when he does something.’” Griffin added: “I just don’t think the training that has been put in place to back up the changes to the law. You’ll still talk to police officers who don’t know the difference between stalking and harassment.” In November 2012, two criminal offences specifically relating to stalking were introduced. Before this, such crimes would have been recorded under other offences, particularly harassment. Stalking is defined as two or more incidents that caused distress or alarm of receiving obscene or threatening letters, emails, text messages or phone calls; having had obscene or threatening information placed on the internet; waiting or loitering around home or workplace; or following or watching by any person, including a partner or family member. Stalking differs from harassment by the “obsessive fixation of the stalker”, said Griffin. “That’s what makes the crime so dangerous, because of the element of fixation and we know it can escalate very dangerously. Stalking’s the only crime where if someone’s going to kill you they warn you first.” Research suggests that 30-40% of stalking cases involve physical violence. The link between domestic homicides and stalking is also believed to be very high. A study in the US found that 76% of women murdered by their partners or former partners had been stalked by them, though comparable data is not available in the UK. As part of the FOI request, the Suzy Lamplugh trust asked all local authorities in England and Wales to report how many of the 500 domestic homicide reviews to haven taken place since 2010 identified stalking as occurring in the lead-up to the murder. Stalking was identified in 27 cases. In its report the trust said they believed this number was “the tip of the iceberg”. Griffin says that making sure cases of stalking are properly recorded is also important because some perpetrators will go on to stalk multiple people across a lifetime. “If you’ve got something on a national police database that says someone is a stalker, that’s an indicator that says they’re a much more dangerous person, so if someone else comes in to report them that’s a red flag to police,” she said. The figures obtained by the charity also revealed a significant discrepancy between the number of recorded cases of stalking across different police forces. Between April 2013 and February 2016, only 22 cases of stalking were recorded by police in Lincolnshire, whereas 179 cases were recorded by the Bedfordshire force, despite the populations of those regions being roughly similar. According to the British Crime Survey 2015, young women are particularly targeted by stalkers, with 10.3% of women aged 16-19 and 7.2% of women aged 20-24 reporting they had been stalked. Most stalkers are mostly known to their victims, with strangers making up only 10% of all stalkers. A stalker is most likely to be a victim’s former partner (45%) or acquaintance (22%), while 5% are current former colleagues, and 4% are family members. |