Asmens persekiojimas: teisinės ir psichologinės problemos

Abstract

This article clarifies phenomenon of stalking – course of conduct directed to specific person that involves repeated visual and physical proximity, non consensual communication or verbal, written, or implied threads or a combination thereof that would cause a reasonable person fear – is analyzed. Stalking activities acquired broad public recognition in western countries during the mid-1990 when a number of criminal cases were widely reported in the media. In the response to the apparent growth of stalking (certainly increased numbers of incidents coming to the attention of the criminal justice system) and the development of new stalking model – cyberstalking, new legislations in western countries were prepared. Because of electronic communications and internet cyberstalking occurs more frequently. Usually general legal rules cannot be applied to all cyberstalking activities and this task becomes additional issue and challenge for lawyers and politicians.
Concept of stalking is difficult to explain because of very broad range of possible activities and possible stalking situations.
Legal regulation of stalking activities is different among different countries. Despite the new legislations, term stalking has no legal status in Australia or USA and the types of behavior that should be encompassed by the term remains contentious.
Lithuanian laws do not explain term stalking and liability for stalking activities can arise only according general laws (for example Criminal Code).
Research on stalking is in its infancy. The majority of studies undertaken to date have been relatively small in scale involving unrepresentative or clinical samples to explore in depth the nature of stalking victimization, the impact on victims or the motivation of the offenders.
There is no reliable statistics of stalking activities, police statistics cannot show real situation because stalking activities are sufficiently latent (major number of stalking victims do not inform police about stalking).
In this paper psychological and legal aspects of stalking are analyzed. The authors analyze legal regulation of stalking, provides comparison of Australian, US and UK legal systems, points to problematical aspect of stalking in Lithuanian legislation. Psychological typologies of stalkers are also analyzed. Also general behavioral provisions to victims of stalking and law enforcement officers are provided.