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Stalking in the States
Projects -
Reports Stalking ProjectsCurrently there are very few projects focusing specifically on stalking, most likely due to the absence of available data. Below is a list of known projects with links to project pages, where available. If you are involved in a stalking project or know of a project in your state that is not listed, please contact us. Please note that most domestic violence projects will also include incidents of domestic stalking. You can view these on the Domestic Violence Projects Page. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in conjunction with the National Institute of Justice and the U.S. Department of Defense, is developing the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Surveillance System (NISVSS), which includes stalking behavior. This survey will sample households to establish incidence and prevalence estimates. National Institute of Justice (NIJ) ProjectsNIJ, through its Violence and Victimization Research Division, provides funding for various research projects related to violence against women. Ongoing projects can be found on the NIJ Grants page. Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) ProjectsThe OVW provides grants to programs that provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking who are in need of transitional housing, short-term housing assistance, and related support services. Funded under the Office of Violence Against Women, Education and Technical Assistance Grants to End Violence Against Women with Disabilities Program, this project provides technical assistance to 22 grantees representing 19 different states. The goals of the program are to create greater options, services and remedies for women with disabilities experiencing sexual assault, stalking and/or domestic violence. The project challenges barriers that exist within the service provider community and public institutions that limit women with disabilities who have experienced violence from accessing services, and create a national coordinated response among service providers The STOP (Services, Training, Officers, and Prosecutors) Violence Against Women Formula Grants are awarded to states to develop and strengthen the criminal justice system's response to violence against women and to support and enhance services for victims. This discretionary grant program is designed to encourage state, local, and tribal governments and state, local, and tribal courts to treat domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking as serious violations of criminal law requiring the coordinated involvement of the entire criminal justice system. This discretionary grant program is designed to enhance services available to rural victims and children by encouraging community involvement in developing a coordinated response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and child abuse. This discretionary grant program is designed to strengthen civil and criminal legal assistance programs for adult and youth victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking who are seeking relief in legal matters arising as a consequence of that abuse or violence. This program is designed to strengthen the higher education community's response to sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence, and dating violence crimes on campuses, and to enhance collaboration between campuses and local criminal justice and victim advocacy organizations. OVW awards grants to each state domestic violence coalition and sexual assault coalition for the purposes of coordinating state victim services activities and collaborating and coordinating with federal, state, and local entities engaged in violence against women activities. This discretionary grant program is designed for increasing awareness of domestic violence and sexual assault against American Indian and Alaska Native women, enhancing the response to such violence at the tribal, federal, and state levels, and providing technical assistance to coalition membership and tribal communities. This discretionary grant program is designed to address the issue of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation, including domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking against victims who are 50 years of age or older, through training and services. This discretionary grant program is designed to provide training, consultation, and information on domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault against individuals with disabilities and to provide direct services to such individuals. This discretionary grant program helps create safe places for visitation with and exchange of children in cases of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, or stalking. State ProjectsAlabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming CaliforniaThe purpose of this program is to continue the efforts of law enforcement agencies to enhance or create specialized units to focus special effort on the handling of violent crimes against adult women, including sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. The specialized units accomplish this purpose through thorough investigation, immediate victim advocacy, and training for law enforcement officers. Thorough investigation leads to successful prosecution of cases, immediate victim advocacy provides victims with the support and resources to help disrupt the cycle of violence, and training assists departments in providing a consistent, effective, and compassionate response to female victims of violent crime. This program provides funds to District Attorney’s Offices to create or enhance specialized units to reduce the threat of victimization related to the crime of stalking through early arrest, prosecution, and sentencing of perpetrators charged with this crime. This program concentrates efforts and resources toward this offense, utilizing special investigators and vertical prosecution of offenders. The purpose of this program is to fund specialized units in prosecutor’s offices in California to vertically prosecute crimes against women, including sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and dating violence. Vertical prosecution has shown to improve conviction rates, reduce victim trauma, and provide more consistent and appropriate sentencing. The California Department of Justice (DOJ) houses the California Restraining and Protective Order System (CARPOS), a statewide database of persons subject to a restraining order. This database can only be accessed by court clerks and law enforcement. The CARPOS allows reported violations of restraining orders to be added to the existing restraining order record in the CARPOS. The violation message is designed to allow law enforcement and criminal justice agencies the capability to enter reported restraining order violations onto any record in the CARPOS. This information may assist prosecutors in building stalking cases and other types of criminal cases involving someone who has been the subject of a restraining order.  PennsylvaniaPCADV provides training and technical assistance to the 46 STOP Grant counties in Pennsylvania. Training topics for STOP team members, consisting of law enforcement, prosecutors and victims service providers, include the Protection From Abuse Act and its recent amendments, stalking, firearms and primary aggressor issues. A STOP newsletter is published and distributed to STOP grant teams on a quarterly basis. Training and technical assistance are also provided to domestic violence advocates around the Commonwealth. Regularly scheduled Legal Advocacy Committee meetings provide an opportunity for advocates to obtain training and share information and strategies to better assist victims of domestic violence and their children. A weekly electronic update further provides these advocates with current information to support their efforts. Rhode IslandThis study will explore the impact of identifying and charging for the crime of stalking in the state of Rhode Island on offender accountability as measured by successful prosecution as well as victim safety, as measured by re-arrest for domestic violence within two years. Researchers will use a multi-methods approach that includes secondary data analysis of a mandated law enforcement reporting system as well as court-based data regarding prosecution and qualitative interviews with select Rhode Island law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense lawyers and court advocates for a more complete understanding of the factors influencing the criminal justice response to stalking. The researcher plans to explore answers to the question, "Does identifying the crime of stalking have an effect on prosecution outcomes, as well as longer terms outcomes in regard to subsequent arrests for domestic violence?" A sample of 1,297 incident and arrest reports where citations have been made by police for threats and harassment between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2005, will be reviewed to extract those cases where stalking charges should have been brought against the suspects. These extracted cases will be compared with 140 cases during the same period where the suspects were actually cited for stalking. Comparisons will be made on a variety of characteristics, with the end result being the development of a more complete profile of stalkers. Qualitative interviews (group) with 30 key informants from smaller cities in Rhode Island will be conducted to assess factors that may influence the criminal justice response to stalking. UtahThe Utah Attorney General's Office created the state's first nonprofit visitation and exchange center for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and their children. The All-R-Kids Center provides monitored exchanges where the visiting parent is carefully supervised, and guidelines are in place to ensure there is no contact between parents. The center was made possible by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice/Office on Violence Against Women. WisconsinThis project provides assistance for families experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, and stalking. Four of the 34 state service providers are receiving funds to expand services, enhance safety, and increase center staff. In addition to the mandated OJP technical support, training and technical assistance to the four implementation sites are provided by subcontracts from the Children's Trust Fund to the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Kieffer Consultation and Facilitation. WyomingThe Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault and the University of Wyoming College of Law provide a Legal Services domestic violence clinic. Each semester, four student interns are assigned to represent victims of domestic violence in obtaining family violence protection orders, stalking orders, divorces, or custody matters. The Legal Services Program also includes training in developing client counseling skills and representing abused women. Go to next section - Stalking Reports |