The Crime of Stalking: How Big Is the Problem?

Scientific information on stalking in the United States has been limited, despite unprecedented media, legal, and legislative attention to the subject over the past decade. To better understand the broader context of violence in which stalking occurs, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborated in a comprehensive survey of violence against women. The National Violence Against Women Survey, conducted by the Center for Policy Research, collected data from 8,000 women and 8,000 men 18 years of age or older on a broad range of issues related to violence. The Crime of Stalking: How Big Is the Problem? discusses the stalking aspects of the study. Survey findings indicated that stalking is a bigger problem than previously thought, affecting about 1.4 million victims annually.