Stalking

Personally I believe that to stalk a person it is undoubtedly a bad behaviour. On the search engine Google, stalking is described as unwanted attention by individuals or groups of people to others. I do not believe that is the best way to describe stalking however that term unwanted emphasises why the behaviour is bad. Previously in my blogs I described bad behaviour as 'an act that harms one's self or another person' therefore as stalking can potentially lead to harming a person for this reason I believe the behaviour is bad.

The level of immorality within the given behaviour could be measured by the extent of observance, however this is difficult. By this I mean it could be hard to distinguish when a concerned interest in someone's activities becomes stalking, as for example in light of creations such as Facebook and other social networking sites we are able to observe and attain information, pictures and conversations of other people, therefore if stalking was defined as watching a person, many people could be claimed as stalkers.

Not long ago I watched a film, unfortunately I cannot remember its title, but for me it defined stalking. In the film, a male character, took hundreds of photographs of his friends wife, he set up cameras in their bathroom, toilet and bedrooms, stole family videos and clothes of the victim. I believe this presents inappropriate observance, which invades the victim's life with unwanted attention. This example of stalking therefore includes theft, breaking and entering and other unlawful behaviour.

When researching stalking I came across a study by Mullen et al (2000), "A Study of Stalkers" http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/156/8/1244 In the study 145 stalkers were used. From the investigation five types of stalkers were recognized: rejected, intimacy seeking, incompetent, resentful and predatory. The stalkers were found to have varying motivations from reasserting power over an ex partner who rejected them, to the quest for a loving relationship. Stalkers were generally lonely, socially incompetent people who all had the capacity to frighten and distress their victims. In the study 36% of the stalkers attacked their victim. Due to studies such as these it backs up my beliefs to why stalking is unquestionably bad behaviour.