STALKING
1999; Elsevier BV; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0193-953x(05)70061-7
ISSN1558-3147
Autores Tópico(s)Marriage and Sexual Relationships
ResumoIf there is a heart of darkness in the desire to bond with another, it is stalking. Typically defined as “the willful, malicious, and repeated following and harassing of another person that threatens his or her safety” (p 258),30 stalking is now a crime in all 50 states and a federal offense in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. Although first criminalized less than a decade ago in California, the behavior is very old; “longing on a large scale is what makes history” (p 11).4 Forensic cases that predated the crime of stalking have shaped the contours of our law. The murder of Tarasoff at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969 by the erotomanically deluded Poddar brought to the mental health profession third-party warnings,20 and the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981 by Hinckley who triangulated his obsessional pursuit of Jodie Foster, changed the federal insanity defense.3 The author30 has used the term obsessional following in clinical research31 to more rigorously operationalize stalking behavior because it seems to capture the most common cognitive pattern (obsession) and the most common prohibited act (following) of stalkers.
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