THE DARK SIDE OF TECHNOLOGY

adapted from the National Center for Victims of Crime

Imagine that you are a young wife estranged from your husband. A court has ordered him to stay away from you, but he shows up everywhere you go. Although you haven't spoken to him in months, he always knows exactly where you are.

Last year, the Seattle police received such a report from 36-year-old Sherri Peak, whose husband, Robert, seemed to know her every move. Detectives believed that Robert was stalking her, and they brought her car into a city shop to scan for tracking devices. After several hours of searching, one officer popped off the dashboard cover and spotted a global positioning system (GPS) and a cell phone embedded in the car. Then police checked Sherri's computer and found spyware that allowed Robert to hack into her e-mail. Sherri was indeed being stalked — via technology.

Sherri's case illustrates a disturbing new trend. The devices we use to surf the Internet, e-mail one another, download music and find our way in unfamiliar towns have also equipped stalkers with powerful tools to track their victims. While "conventional" stalkers follow a victim from home to work, or place dozens of phone calls, a technologically empowered stalker can use GPS to track his victim's location; computer programs to monitor Internet activity and hack into e-mail; and everything from text messaging and e-mail to harass and threaten her.

The potential impact of these tactics is staggering. National statistics show that one in 12 women and one in 45 men will be stalked during their lifetime. The average duration of stalking is two years, and more often than not it is accompanied by physical violence. Three out of four women murdered by their intimate partners have been stalked by that partner before they were killed.

Last year Congress tightened the federal stalking law to take these potential stalking tools and techniques into consideration. Some states have followed suit, but the majority of state anti-stalking laws have not kept pace with stalkers who increasingly use sophisticated, widely available technology to track and terrorize their victims.

Recently, the National Center for Victims of Crime issued a new report, "The Model Stalking Code Revisited: Responding to the New Realities of Stalking," to provide state legislators, local law enforcement and community activists with a guide for creating stronger anti-stalking laws to prohibit and appropriately punish acts of stalking with current or even future technology.

"Unfortunately, many state laws do not reflect this new reality, resulting in stalking behavior that is beyond the reach of the criminal justice system," said Mary Lou Leary, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. "Our updated model stalking code will provide states with a useful template for closing the loopholes in many existing stalking laws."

Urge your state legislators, local law enforcement and community advocates to take all forms of stalking seriously. To learn more about how you can combat high-tech stalking, visit the Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Violent Crime.

If you or a loved one is a victim of stalking, call the National Center for Victims of Crime at 800-FYI-CALL.