Current State of Knowledge about Stalking and Gender-Based Violence: The Known, Unknown, and Yet To Be Known

Judy Postmus (she & her): Okay i'm going to get started so welcome everybody.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Happy New Year to those of us who celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And thank you for joining us today for this very important topic, my name is Judy post miss i'm the Dean and professor at the University of Maryland school of social work and i'll be your moderator today for today's panel.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Today, nearly one in six of women experience talking victimization at some point during their life and most are stalked by someone they know typically current or former intimate partner.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Given the escalation of violence and potential harm that an individual may commit While talking someone, it is very important to bring more attention to this issue.

Judy Postmus (she & her): This brownback session entitled the current state of knowledge about stalking and gender based violence, the known the unknown and yet to be no.

Judy Postmus (she & her): highlights of panelists scholars to share what the field currently knows about stalking behaviors and victims and includes the focus on intimate partner violence non partner relationships and police response.

Judy Postmus (she & her): In addition, panelists will share knowledge from current applications of stalking research and interventions.

Judy Postmus (she & her): At the end of the presentation, a moderated question and answer or Q amp a session will follow, so please, if you have any questions during the presentations hold them or put them in the.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Q amp a and not in the chat but in the Q amp a at the bottom of your screen on the right side, where we will get to those questions when we finished with the panel.

Okay.

Judy Postmus (she & her): just want to acknowledge that this particular brown bag seminar is being hosted of course by the University of Maryland school of social work.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And our office of continuing professional education is part of the violence against women, research consortium, which is at rutgers university school of social work, and it is funded by the National Institute of justice.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And this is supported in part by an award that you can see, on the screen that the violence against women, research consortium received.

Judy Postmus (she & her): In 2017.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Just a disclaimer opinions or points of view expressed in this presentation, are those of the presenters and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice.

Judy Postmus (she & her): The objectives for today that participants will understand the intersection of stalking and violence against women overall and stalking and intimate partner violence specifically.

Judy Postmus (she & her): participants will identify the current state of police response just talking and participants will recognize the strategies and challenges of conducting stalking related research.

Judy Postmus (she & her): So the first presenter is going to be Dr Lisa Medina.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Lisa Dr Medina, is an assistant professor at the school of social work at the University of Michigan.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Her research investigates health and mental health outcomes associated with gender based violence and the connections between different forms of violence across the lifespan.

Judy Postmus (she & her): She is particularly interested in understanding how social policy and structural factors perpetuate perpetrate any qualities and violence in health and improving system level, such as criminal justice and healthcare responses to gender based violence, so Lisa floor is yours.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Thank you so much.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): just going to test out my screen here.

There we go great.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Well Hello everybody i'm really excited and honored to be here today with my.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Co panelists to talk about this issue of stalking and so as Dean post best mentioned my research very broadly focuses on gender based violence.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Including stalking and in forms of violence across the lifespan and so today i'll be highlighting findings from an article on.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): That myself and colleagues published in the journal of American college health.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Looking at the prevalence and socio demographic factors associated with stalking among college students, and so my co authors on this study include Dr Noel Bush arm and Doris, who was the pci of the campus climate survey.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): that these data report on and then Dr lilo would bethany backers and caitlin Sally.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): at the University of Texas Austin Institute on domestic violence and sexual assault, so they were involved in the administration of this campus climate survey and very kindly let me analyze their data to look at this topic of stalking victimization among college students.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And so, as Dean post was mentioned some of the national estimates that we have that the CDC estimates, a large proportion of women have experienced talking in their lifetime and oh oops sorry that happened.

i'm trying to go back.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): zoom technology okay there we go so just want to note that a large proportion of female stalking victims have experienced stalking.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): before the age of 25 and so college students really represent an at risk population that requires a targeted intervention and policy responses to address talking in particular.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): But most campus climate surveys have not necessarily focused on stalking in detail and very limited data are available on the experiences of stalking among different subpopulations of students.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So we set out to first examine the overall prevalence of stalking victimization reported among a demographically diverse sample of college students.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Second, to look at the prevalence of potential differences in prevalence among students subgroups.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And third, to determine if and how race, ethnicity gender identity and sexual orientation, were associated with stalking victimization while adjusting for other student characteristics.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): which could help us to potentially identify student populations most in need of resources and support on college campuses.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So, as I mentioned the sample for this from this study was taken from the campus climate survey the cultivating learning and safe environments project administered at the eight campuses in the University of Texas.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): university system students were randomly invited to participate over 180 6000 students were invited and a little over 26,000 responded and completed the survey, resulting in a response rate of 14.1%.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): We assessed a range of different demographic factors and variables in this study and stalking was measured using eight items adapted from the CDC national intimate partner and sexual violence survey.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): which asks respondents how many times one or more people have done the following things to us so, for example.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): approached or approached you are showed up in places such as your home your workplace or school when he didn't want them to left you unwanted messages made on one and phone calls for you, etc.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And then students who positively endorsed experiencing at least one stalking behavior were then asked a list of follow up questions specifically to.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): get more details on the most impactful the students perceptions of the most impactful stopping incidents that they had experienced since entering college so some examples of fees.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): included where this happened, what was the locate or the relationship of the perpetrator, to the victim, etc.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So this slide presents a table with just the very basic descriptive portrait of stalking experiences among students, so at the end, the right hand.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): bullet points here also highlight what's in this table that has too much text in too many numbers but, overall, we can see that 17.1% of students in this sample of over 26,000 reported experiencing at least once an incident of stalking since entering college in terms of the number.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Of stalking behaviors reported most experienced one stopping behavior with about 24% about 50% experienced one behavior about 24% experience to stalking behaviors and so on.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Most students experienced on one of voicemails text messages emails messages through social media.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And in terms of the most impactful stocking experiences, most of these are at least half of these incidents happened on campus.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And the perpetrator was a stranger so among stalking victims 32% reported that the perpetrator was a stranger followed by an acquaintance a friend and a current or former intimate partner.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And so the second table then reports on the by various correlations between the different socio demographic factors we looked at and stocking victimization since entering college so.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Age was significantly associated with stocking at the by variant level, such that victims were on average two years younger.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): With regard to race and ethnicity American Indian Alaska native students recorded the highest rates of stalking victimization followed by biracial multiracial students.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): transgender non binary students reported the highest rates of stalking victimization compared to assist gender a student groups so let's just.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): A third about 30 almost 30% of trans and non binary students had experienced talking since entering college about a quarter of 25% of lesbian, gay, bisexual queer a sexual and other sexual minority groups reported victimization.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): undergrads were significantly more likely to report stocking and students who were living on campus for also more likely to report stocking.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So those were at the five variant level, and then, when we.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Look at all these demographic factors and how they related to our the outcome of stalking victimization we found lower odds of stalking among.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Older students latinx students and increased odds among transgender non binary students sexual minority students and domestic or international students.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Sorry just during the animation to draw your attention to those findings.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So overall, the rate of stalking victimization found in the survey.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): which was 17% is consistent with prior research which has largely.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): sample of female college students and so these findings, extend knowledge to include this gender males as well as transgender and non binary student populations.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): We also found notable differences that existed amongst students based on race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation identities in the adjusted analyses.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Much of which these patterns are consistent with research on general population studies or with general population samples, so the finding that.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): American Indian Alaska native students reported significantly higher rates is consistent with studies national survey studies, including this this that has documented similar patterns and scholars, who are.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): experts in the field of violence against native American women in particular have attributed these disparities largely to structural inequality piece that.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): That indigenous communities are subjected to so factors such as an adequate funding for tribal and indigenous communities and adequate resources and services and protections for victims other types of social and economic and qualities that indigenous communities are subjected to.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And we also found that are that that sexual and gender minority students in this study at both the Iberian and multi variant level.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Had significantly higher risks of reporting stalking victimization, and this is consistent with some studies that have looked at LGBT Q populations at a national level, but far fewer studies have looked at.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): stalking experiences specifically among college students on LGBT Q I plus college students.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So, in terms of implications for practice and policy.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Given these documented racial gender and sexual qualities and stalking victimization we need targeted prevention and response strategies that meet the specific needs of these student populations.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And we need more research to better understand what student experiences are and what their needs are we need policies that enhance protection, specifically for LGBT Q plus students, including policies that.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): provide more funding more resources, more support.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): to students from these communities and training, specifically on stocking.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): For our campus administrators for law enforcement staff faculty and other providers who are working with student populations on campus so that they.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): can have a better understanding of the unique dynamics of stopping victimization how to implement effective responses and how campus responses might need to be different.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): For stalking victimization versus other types of violence and harassment that students experience.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Sorry, there we go and our findings also present some implications for future research so despite the springs of the study, particularly with this was a really large demographically diverse sample that allowed us to look at.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Problems across students subgroups there were some limitations, including.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): limitations related to the studies stocking measure, so the climate survey used measures adapted from the national intimate partner and sexual violence survey which can be helpful to compare rates with.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Nationally representative general population samples, but those measures do not adequately capture technology based stocking, and this is very such as stalking through social media, and this is very important and relevant.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): For young adult and college student populations further study on the topic.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): On race and ethnicity is is needed, and so we especially need to unpack the findings in this study that suggests that American Indian Alaska native students are at.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): The highest risk, and also at the library at level we found really high rates of stalking among multi-racial students and so and lower.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): lower rates and decreased odds of stalking among latinx students so future studies, we suggest should test and ensure that measures of stalking are culturally relevant across racial and ethnic groups.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And, as I mentioned earlier scholars who conduct research on on topics of violence within indigenous communities have previously pointed to various structural inequalities that.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): That indigenous communities face and explain inequalities or disparities and violence and victimization so.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): We suggest that future studies are needed to better understand how what those structural barriers are specifically on college campuses for students of color and things like racial discrimination help seeking experiences.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Police reporting other types of structural barriers administer that are carried out through campus policies or the lack thereof or absence of certain policies and protections how those things might contribute.

Judy Postmus (she & her): To dispute verity.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Remember morning.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): At it Thank you so much thankless and then finally.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): We suggest that study designs using mixed methods, as well as longitudinal designs would be well suited to unpack these complex relationships and better identify student needs and experiences and help to develop campus responses that you strength based approach approaches to serving.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Students from from racial ethnic and sexual and gender minority groups, so this might help us to better understand the context of stopping victimization for students subgroups.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): and also how stalking might be intersecting with other forms of violence and harassment, so are these is stopping experienced among.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): These different sub groups of students part of an intimate partner relationship are they part.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): of other forms of violence, do they intersect with other types of targeted harassment gender harassment, for example, or hate crimes that are targeted to transcend non binary students, so we need more research using robust methods to explore those relationships.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Great Thank you so much Lisa appreciate the this presentation very informative.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And just a shout out to Lisa is a Grad of our PhD program at the University of Maryland, even though I wasn't there, so thank you for being.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Being on this panel next we have.

Judy Postmus (she & her): I think I have the screen.

Judy Postmus (she & her): i'm having some difficulty shontayne I don't know why, if someone could just move the next slide that would be helpful.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Thank you so next we have alondra Garza, who is a doctoral candidate at the Department of criminal justice in criminology at Sam Houston State University.

Judy Postmus (she & her): She is expected to complete her degree in May of 2022 and has accepted up incoming.

Judy Postmus (she & her): accepted a position as an incoming assistant professor in the department of criminal justice at the University of central Florida and an affiliate of the violence against women faculty research cluster.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Her research focuses on the criminal justice response to violence against women and how the social stratification of victims.

Judy Postmus (she & her): For example, gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, legal status, etc influences responses, treatment and decision making.

Judy Postmus (she & her): In 2021 she was selected as a Ruth de peterson fellow by the American society of criminology her recent work has appeared in crime and delinquency criminal justice and behavior and Journal of interpersonal violence among other journals so welcome alondra.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Thank you good afternoon Good morning, depending on where you're.

Alondra Garza (she/her): At and.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So, my name is ELENA Gaza and i'm really excited to be here with you today and talk a little bit about a study that I conducted along with my colleagues Courtney Franklin and amanda goodson.

Alondra Garza (she/her): That was published in 2020 and it was really examining sort of this nexus to intimate partner, violence and stalking and and police response and arrest decisions.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So first i'd is obviously well established that intimate partner, violence and stalking occur with frequency estimates tell us that about one in three women will experience.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Some form of violence perpetrated by a current or former partner during their lifetime, including physical violence, sexual violence and really other forms of psychologically controlling behaviors.

Alondra Garza (she/her): and, additionally, we know that nearly one in six women will also experienced stalking in their lifetime.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And while definitions of stalking may vary a bit across jurisdictions broadly, we know that it is a pattern of intentional behaviors that are directed at a victim, with the intention to produce fear and these behaviors can include.

Alondra Garza (she/her): been repeatedly followed watched and showing up uninvited receiving unwanted attention, perhaps in the forms of guests gifs or text messages, but also being monitored through technology.

Alondra Garza (she/her): sorry about that so importantly, we know that there is a significant connection between intimate partner, violence and stalking were overwhelmingly more than half of female victims.

Alondra Garza (she/her): will be stalked by someone they know, and this is most often a current or former partner so recognizing really this nexus is.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Particularly important because research has told us and demonstrated that partner perpetrated stalking is generally identified as more dangerous in terms of.

Alondra Garza (she/her): escalation of violence, how often it occurs, and it occurs, for longer periods of time and this typically does produce more harm for victims, as compared to stranger perpetrated stalking.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So, in other words, the existence of stalking within a an abusive relationship really exacerbates sort of this already dangerous situation for victims.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So both intimate partner, violence and stalking remain relatively underreported to police, but when these incidents do come to the attention of law enforcement.

Alondra Garza (she/her): responses have oftentimes been lacking so historically, we know that officers perceived intimate partner violence sort of as a private, family matter.

Alondra Garza (she/her): right that did not necessarily warrant formal criminal justice intervention and decades of effort and research and advocacy have since improved police response to intimate partner violence.

Alondra Garza (she/her): and encouraged arrest, however, shortcomings to remain, including APP police adherence to sort of cultural myths about intimate partner violence victims.

Alondra Garza (she/her): The misuse of discretion that oftentimes results in case attrition were not necessarily all cases results in arrest and if they do, they don't necessarily traverse the criminal justice system.

Alondra Garza (she/her): In terms of stalking while the criminal justice response is not as developed in terms of research.

Alondra Garza (she/her): The police response has really been characterized by the under identification of stalking limited knowledge of statutes oftentimes confounding stalking with other offenses.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And so you know, sometimes some of the stalking behaviors taken in isolation.

Alondra Garza (she/her): or alone are oftentimes not criminal inherently and so police really have this difficult task of evaluating sort of the broader context of a relationship, and this can be difficult if officers don't have experience in responding to stocking or perhaps have had training.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So, given what we know about intimate partner, violence and stalking.

Alondra Garza (she/her): The purpose of our research here was sort of twofold so first we were interested to examine among a sample of intimate partner violence cases that were reported to police agency.

Alondra Garza (she/her): What was the extent of sort of previous stalking behavior and then to.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Did this previous stalking behavior have an effect on police arrest decisions in sort of a multivariate context well being able to control for some relevant extra legal and legal factors that we know, have traditionally mattered.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So the data used from the study come from really a larger grant project.

Alondra Garza (she/her): That was awarded by the Office on violence against women, and there was different data collection efforts and this necessarily this wasn't necessarily a stalking project but.

Alondra Garza (she/her): One of the data collection efforts did include collecting a sample of redacted family violence case files from a police agency and so.

Alondra Garza (she/her): These cases were reported to a very large urban police department that is located in one of the five.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Most large and diverse us cities in the US, and so, for this particular study we were interested in using cases.

Alondra Garza (she/her): That included intimate partner violence incidents involving one adult female complainant and an adult male suspects.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Who were identified as current or former intimate partners so these case files for the encoded for quantifiable data related to the victim suspect information evidence arrest outcomes, what have you.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So first to examine the extent of prior stalking behaviors within these case files.

Alondra Garza (she/her): The research team read and coded the cases and captured if the complainant in the case files mentioned experiencing at least two forms of prior stalking behaviors.

Alondra Garza (she/her): To police using items that were drawn from prior research conducted by Fisher and colleagues so, for instance, the victim would tell police while they're taking the intimate partner violence report, you know he always has telephone me he shows up uninvited.

Alondra Garza (she/her): There was also an other option for capturing unique types of stalking such as.

Alondra Garza (she/her): stalking by proxy where there was a victim that might have told police he sends his friends to come show up at my house things of that nature and so results demonstrated that approximately 19% of these cases with intimate partners did have some sort of previous stalking behaviors.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So approximately 33% of these cases did result in an arrest.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And to assess the effect of stalking on the police arrest decisions sequential logistic regression models were conducted so first the effect of extra legal predictors.

Alondra Garza (she/her): were included, followed by the inclusion of legal factors and, finally, the inclusion of the main predictor that we were curious about the previous stalking behavior.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And so results demonstrated that previous stalking was actually not a significant correlate of arrest.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Findings indicated that instead legal factors like the history of intimate partner violence increased arrest by nearly two times.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Alcohol involvement was also an important factor that increased arrest additionally legal factors matter and, from a practical sense so evidence increased arrest by over two times, as well as victim injury and the presence of witnesses.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So the the findings from the study do have important policy implications like I mentioned.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Approximately 19% of these cases did involve some form of previous stalking behavior and while this estimate was identified based off the research is reading and coding.

Alondra Garza (she/her): This is really in line with what we have seen with prior studies that have sort of examine the extent of previous stalking behavior within intimate partner violence.

Alondra Garza (she/her): cases, and so the case files in this particular study did not have some sort of police formal identity.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Identity cater or identifier of stalking and at this point in the data collection when working with this agency, they weren't using.

Alondra Garza (she/her): A supplement and so from a policy standpoint police may benefit from including a stalking assessment or supplement when they do respond to intimate partner violence cases, and this is in order to be able to sort of.

Alondra Garza (she/her): document, the history of these relationships and then be able to possibly identify if stalking is occurring.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Additionally, like I mentioned previous stalking behavior did not predict arrest, even though it was sort of theorized that it would function as a proxy for severity and so potentially one reason could be that.

Alondra Garza (she/her): officers in this agency had difficulty identifying sort of these behaviors that were being mentioned by victims as stalking, particularly within the context of intimate partner, violence and.

Alondra Garza (she/her): As this being potentially dangerous for victims and so therefore wasn't taken into consideration, and this is really in line with what research has documented in terms of the law enforcement response to stalking.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And so, in terms of policy implications police may benefit from additional programming and training, the target stalking identification and best practices to augment.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Knowledge and the efficacy in identifying the occurrence of stalking within intimate partner, violence and there's fantastic organizations that already do this type of work and our training police officers and prosecutorial agencies like spark.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So, like all studies, there was limitations, but they do inform sort of our research avenues for the future, so, specifically the conceptualization of stalking in this study was identified by researchers using items from prior studies and.

Alondra Garza (she/her): It does not necessarily capture the element of fear, so we know that stalking statutes do require fear to be present.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And to be invoked by victims and so future research should really employ methodological designs to be.

Alondra Garza (she/her): able to measure fear within partner perpetrated stalking and to capture how this operates and potentially influences how police are identifying and making decisions in these incidents.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Additionally, this study did not account for stalking that occurred after the initial report to police, so if the victim continue to experience these behaviors.

Alondra Garza (she/her): During the course of the investigation, and this is a point for future for future research to examine if perhaps this is influential in terms of police response as well.

Alondra Garza (she/her): The study also did examine really the nexus of stalking and intimate partner violence within.

Alondra Garza (she/her): hetero normative intimate partner violence cases with a female complainant na mele suspect, so these findings may not necessarily generalize to other relationship diets and.

Alondra Garza (she/her): it's really important that feature studies do assess sort of police response and identification and decisions and incidents involving other relationship diets like LGBT Q couples.

Alondra Garza (she/her): And like I mentioned these case files work from a police agency that is located in a large urban city, and we know that most police agencies don't look like this, so it's really important that future research examine.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Smaller to mid sized agencies in suburban and rural jurisdictions and really with continued endeavors examining.

Alondra Garza (she/her): The effective stalking with an intimate partner violence on criminal justice outcomes from multiple data sources, and we really can get a better understanding of this phenomenon Thank you so much, and i'm looking forward to chatting more about this and happy to share a copy of the article.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Thank you so much alondra.

Judy Postmus (she & her): For this interesting and fascinating research and good luck and congratulations on your position at the University of central Florida look forward to hearing more from you as your career progresses, so now i'd like to end.

Judy Postmus (she & her): It says i'm controlling the screenshot day I can't move forward oh there we go, so now i'd like to introduce our next speaker.

Judy Postmus (she & her): tk Logan PhD is a professor at the University Kentucky department of behavioral science her research focuses on gender based violence, including coercive control.

Judy Postmus (she & her): sexual assault and stalking firearm related risks personal safety planning fear reduction effectiveness of interventions substance use disorder treatment, recovery and health disparities.

Judy Postmus (she & her): That to log in as an author on over an impressive 175 research articles and book chapters and serves on the editorial board or four different journals.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Her books include women and victimization contributing factors interventions of invitations published by the American psychological association press.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And partner, stalking how women respond cope and survive published by spring or publisher.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Not to Logan is also involved with several Community boards and national organizations working to prevent gender based violence, where i'm honor that Dr Logan is here today to talk about her work on socking Thank you.

TK Logan: Welcome everybody i'm so glad to see so many people take a time out of their day to focus on this topic of stalking i've been studying stalking for over two decades so.

TK Logan: it's really nice to see more and more attention paid to this issue.

TK Logan: Over those two decades i've noticed a couple things a couple trends about stalking that is informing the work that I do today, and this this particular article i'm going to talk about today is was published a couple years ago.

TK Logan: But one of the things that repeatedly happens with stalking I feel like if you talk to victims, I think they would pretty much agree with this is it's denied dismissed and minimize.

TK Logan: And I think part of that reason is, of course, the assault and the dangerousness associated with stalking the the overlap with legality are really important consequences of stalking.

TK Logan: But in addition, there are other consequences related to stalking, including the harm of being adrenaline and afraid 24 seven and the wear and tear on the body and that you know, the average stalking.

TK Logan: case is about two years now that's average so so i'm are longer so i'm are shorter, but even if you think about four months or six months of being a journalist 24 seven.

TK Logan: The wear and tear on your mental health and your physical health has caught long lasting consequences so that's one thing that we need to do a better job of is documenting the harm of stalking beyond the physical assault.

TK Logan: Because many victims don't aren't assaulted or that salt isn't necessarily the worst part of that experience, even though it's the physical assault that gets more assertive.

TK Logan: responses from the from helpers from all helpers, including the criminal justice system, whereas harm.

TK Logan: That is more invisible like the fear and the other thing that often happens to stalking victims is what what I call.

TK Logan: Life sabotage knocking legs under out from under victim, so that might be their job, it might be their housing, it might be close relationships and and i'm talking, today, this particular paper focuses across victim.

TK Logan: stock our relationship so intimate partner acquaintance and stranger or a distant acquaintance.

TK Logan: yeah, this is not working for me right now.

TK Logan: Can anyone okay.

TK Logan: So, in general, we know there's a gender safety gap and what I mean by that is that women negotiate daily life constantly thinking about their safety, what are they wearing are they going on a first day, who knows where we're going to be so in case, our body terms of.

TK Logan: walking in the dark, to our car, I mean you're just your constant we do all kinds of safety planning every single day that men don't necessarily do or most men don't do.

TK Logan: And there's a couple reasons for that that are hypothesized we don't know for sure this this paper is actually a follow up on an earlier paper that looked at gender safety gap and some factors that contribute to.

TK Logan: Fear levels personal safety fear levels and things like that, but in this publication we're looking at.

TK Logan: The difference of fear levels by gender and personal safety outcomes.

TK Logan: And one thing that is as I presented on socking for for many years, many places that often comes back up is, although we know that more women are impacted by stalking Ben man.

TK Logan: You often hear is it because men are afraid to admit fear, so one of the things you want to do when you're looking at stalking fears, make sure you include a broad.

TK Logan: spectrum of fears, not just for physical safety but safety for others, fear of life sabotage and men worry about those things as as much as women.

TK Logan: So what we wanted to do with this paper is look at stalking related fear level so looking at those talking behaviors.

TK Logan: Anyone who clicked on at least one of the behaviors we measured no fear moderate fear and extreme fear and then the Association of those fear levels on personal safety outcomes by gender.

TK Logan: Can someone forward I don't know.

TK Logan: So we defined fear for this particular paper a little bit more narrow keeping it focused on fear concern for safety of self or close others.

TK Logan: And then we looked at those the association on being assaulted during the stalking any life changes that people made in response to stalking.

TK Logan: And then concerned about that live sabotage like I talked about, and in particular we looked at these personal safety outcomes worry about personal safety how frequently.

TK Logan: per se vulnerability to attack, so the likelihood.

TK Logan: perceived likelihood that i'm going to be attacked and the next year perceptions, that the risk of victimization is higher, because of personal circumstances like.

TK Logan: Because i'm smaller because i'd look like a target because i'm more vulnerable maybe have some physical characteristics that make me more vulnerable.

TK Logan: or feel like i'm more vulnerable to an attack discomfort when thinking about safety so it's hard to safety plan if you're or to think about those things, maybe you're avoiding them, maybe you're not comfortable, for whatever reason, and then looking at some ptsd symptoms.

TK Logan: Oh go back I don't know who's controlling this, but if you go back up to the methods so we did an online survey basically.

TK Logan: Maybe I am controlling okay can.

TK Logan: We use that brief sharp stalking and harassment, assessment and risk profile and what we did, for that is and we have a paper on this.

TK Logan: So we basically have four items and we we looked at all of the tactics that stalkers us and kind of broke them into what we call strategy so surveillance strategies.

TK Logan: Life invasion that's a constant unwanted repeated context that victims of stalking experience intimidation, so that might be implicit or explicit threats.

TK Logan: And then sabotage or interference or sabotage or attack and so, if either, if any of the participants clicked on those.

TK Logan: Any of those four tactics, then we looked at those comparisons like I said, between the three fear groups and what we found is that there are are trends for similar trends for both men and women, the more fear the more stalking tactics, the the.

TK Logan: lower the time that, since it occurred because in this study you could be it could have occurred up to 10 years ago made any changes in their life because of that.

TK Logan: And assaulted and overall those trends were very similar except for women who were extremely afraid were more likely to click on more of those tactics that were happening to them and they were more worried about life sabotage than men.

TK Logan: I really don't know how this is there, we go and so, then we did an analysis of covariance where we partial doubt or tried to control for age of the victim physical and sexual assault history.

TK Logan: perceived environmental risk so some people, for example, if they don't have transportation and a half to walk in public at night and take a bus or maybe they work in a risk environments late at night at a gas station, for example, where they're just a risk for.

TK Logan: For crime is more likely, so we, we also control for that as well as time since stalking occurred.

TK Logan: And again across gender we see these trends with stalking fear and the association with more worried about personal safety more vulnerability increased perceived risk more safety discomfort and more ptsd symptoms, however, there, women have higher levels of those last three and blue.

TK Logan: Can someone forward.

TK Logan: So overall We also found higher rates of stalking and this study 30% of the women in the study and 12% of men reported someone targeting.

TK Logan: them with stalking behavior and extremely afraid and I don't know if that is because we had a sort of a younger sample it's also possible the way that.

TK Logan: This study was marketed as a personal safety studies so maybe people who are had those experiences were more likely to fill the survey out.

TK Logan: But what we did find is that stalking related fear was associated with a negative impact on sense of personal safety for both men and women, however, more women had extreme fear more women had.

TK Logan: Experience more stalking strategies that we talked about more worry about life sabotage and.

TK Logan: also perceive their risk of being higher because of personal characteristics had more discomfort when thinking about safety and had higher ptsd.

TK Logan: So that gender safety gap continues even among those with.

TK Logan: With fear levels among men and women who both have fear levels there's still a difference in how those outcomes, or those associations.

TK Logan: And also, the fact is, I think there's a lot of studies out there that just that do measure interpersonal violence experiences, but stalking is often left off of that and research.

TK Logan: We often just are not talking about stalking and I I see at least the media and Kentucky Mrs stalking time and time again they're always putting it into the different bins so I just think it's.

TK Logan: It has an impact on people's lives long after it stops and it's just important to document that to recognize that and address that and the next slide.

TK Logan: Just kind of again reiterate that sustained fear levels are harmful to health and mental health and.

TK Logan: It has implications for safety planning and precautionary behaviors both during the stalking as well as.

TK Logan: Even after the stalking has has subsided, maybe, special attention for people who have had these experiences.

TK Logan: And the and there's a lot of questions about that what is effective safety planning look like with men and women, stalking victims, would it differ do they do different things, and what is effective, these are all questions I think we're still trying to answer with regard to safety.

TK Logan: Planning was stalking victims so that's all I have.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Thank you tk appreciate you and the other panelists Lisa dina and.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Logic Garza in this fascinating excuse me a fascinating lunch brown bag discussion today.

Judy Postmus (she & her): I also want to give a shout out to.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Those from participating from and I J, including Tina crossland Angela more and the two research associates iris cardenas and Lisa Thompson and, finally, I want to shout out to Shaun T hatcher who's been.

Judy Postmus (she & her): helping us with the technology from the continuing professional education program at our school so now, I want to get to some questions and answers I might ask.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Hopefully, I will figure out i'll call on who the name is and hopefully.

Judy Postmus (she & her): know which present presenter you're hoping to get an answer from the first one is a generic one that's kind of combined with somebody else's question Eric Garcia asked, can I get this PowerPoint sent to me by email Tina, you said you were going to respond to this.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Are you there.

Christine Crossland: I don't know if you can hear me, but the answer is yes, we will definitely get that out to the folks who participated, yes.

Judy Postmus (she & her): um.

Judy Postmus (she & her): What about the recording.

Christine Crossland: um.

Christine Crossland: I think we'll have to get back with people on that, but definitely a copy of the presentation all the slides will be made available to everyone today great.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And I do know that later in the slides are a number of references key references that the three moderators put into their presentation, so this will be part of the PowerPoint.

Judy Postmus (she & her): don't shoemaker ass the fact that most report being stalked by a stranger stands out to me this is for.

Judy Postmus (she & her): lisa's presentation it sends out to her, because since usually the numbers suggest that most victims are stalked by somebody they know usually a current or former intimate partner, do you have any idea what accounts for this difference.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And that's a great question done, I think, and maybe could be answered twofold First the question that those follow up items in the climate survey that asked.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): students who positively endorsed experiencing at least one stocking behavior were asked to recall the most.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Most impactful stalking incident that they had experienced so it's very possible that students experience multiple types of stalking experiences from multiple types of multiple perpetrators so that estimate, I think there was about you about 30% 30% had reported that it was.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): A stranger followed by acquaintance friend and then an intimate partner, so that is reflective of participants most impactful stalking experience that they had.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): And I the other, you know part to that, as I think there's so many questions that that of context really we just don't understand.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): stocking experiences among college students and how college settings might be different or similar to stocking experienced outside of college campuses So those are the two ideas that I have that might account for some of that everyone.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Thank you Lisa ratio Morgan also wanted oh i'm sorry don't mean dumb dumb of itch asked what's the reason for the transgender students has such a high level of stalking in your study.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): that's a really great question, I mean, I think that I don't have an answer for that I think there's still again there's a really.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): strong need for more research to better understand the experiences of trans and non binary students again this is stalking that's happening on college campuses.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Is it similar or different than stopping an attack that happens outside of campus settings I think that's a question that remains to be answered.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): yeah, but there is, you know research very broadly with general population samples that continues to show this trend, as well, higher rates of IPTV sexual assault and other forms of violence among trans.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): folks, so I think there's just a lot of research that needs to attend to what the experience of trans students are and how they may or may not be related to.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): You know, structural inequalities that those communities, uniquely face right.

Judy Postmus (she & her): So another question Lisa from Rachel Morgan does the.

Judy Postmus (she & her): gender identity measure use a one step one question or two step approach.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Also, great question Rachel at the are so the Ark three campus climate survey is what was used in the University of Texas.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Climate surveys and those surveys are available online.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): which it does use the the two step approach, which I think is you're referring to Rachel is they asked first, the first question is sex assigned at birth, followed by how you identify currently.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): So the survey does use a two step approach, but all those materials on the methods of the survey are available online.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Great.

Judy Postmus (she & her): i'm an anonymous attendee and this might actually be for all three of you, this might be too early in the session asked, do you have any information about the perpetrators in the stalking cases.

Judy Postmus (she & her): I think it was directed to you Lisa but i'm it could perhaps if others have information in their research about the perpetrators.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Under a tk please feel free to.

TK Logan: So I don't feel like there's a lot of good research on perpetrators out there and.

TK Logan: You know that is really hard to study, for one thing and.

TK Logan: We do a hat and so because stalking is not arrested and sentence, so I mean there are some studies, for example, where they've been.

TK Logan: involved in the criminal justice system, but that is also a very biased sample in a way, because it really isn't, it is rare for a charge and.

TK Logan: conviction and a sentence so they're just they're very hard to find and they're they're not really.

TK Logan: Wanting to self report these behaviors and that there are some out there, but it's just it's it's just really hard to study from this stalker perspective for me, I like to you know focus on the behavior of the stalker and all of us have talked about that a bit and.

TK Logan: You know, you can get some victim self reports, for example, we do know.

TK Logan: That intimate partner stalkers, for example, were more violent they're more likely to strangle their victims they're more likely to sexual assault their victims, and one of our studies, they were three times more likely to have been raped by that person.

TK Logan: So we do know some of those things but yeah that's a million dollar question actually.

TK Logan: I think the person who answers that will have a million dollars or more.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Great Okay, I noted that Sean K from the continuing professional education, said that the PowerPoint is now available in your account.

Judy Postmus (she & her): You can sign in and hit the orange handout button to get the PowerPoint.

Judy Postmus (she & her): So some immediate reaction to a question i'm sheila harper ass are the survey tools available for distribution she asked from the last speaker i'm not shayla so sheila sorry i'm not sure which last speaker.

Judy Postmus (she & her): But I would say, maybe in general are the survey tools available for distribution are they published anywhere.

So.

TK Logan: I don't know if she was talking about the stalking and harassment assessment, risk profile is out there it's not for research purposes as much as it is to help people who are being stalked and it's a dynamic online.

TK Logan: tool it had there's it takes 10 to 15 minutes, and so you can do it yourself.

TK Logan: If you're a victim, you can do it if you're a friend or family member or you just want to learn about it, if you're a professional you can go out there, answer the questions and see for yourself what kinds of questions.

TK Logan: are being used, and then, when you're done with that you get to narrative reports one that's about two pages that just kind of presents this big picture.

TK Logan: And what I like to call sound bites for victims, so they can talk about why they're so scared.

TK Logan: What are those risk factors that sort of match what the literature and there's a paper that the literature that that tool was built on, and then the second one is sort of the safety management tool, the other items that I think Lisa that you all use I think those are out there as well.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): Those are publicly available online at the University of Texas Austin.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Okay, so ginger Jones asked if we focus our attention on changing statutes will this enable our police departments to better aid victims of stalking and increase public funding for programs to aid victims and trained police.

Alondra Garza (she/her): I can speak a little bit about that so not necessarily my work, but the work of a colleague that was just published this year.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Actually, looked at sort of the legislative changes and statutes in Texas, to see if this had sort of any impact on stalking arrest and rates and, unfortunately, their findings did not support this.

Alondra Garza (she/her): So there was no differences in the rates of stalking arrest and the inclusion of sort of cyber stalking which was.

Alondra Garza (she/her): A part of the legislative changes in Texas also did not impact arrest it's a paper by liana boo farting colleagues called us still in the shadows and so it's, at least in this jurisdiction, it almost seems more of a symbolic.

Alondra Garza (she/her): sort of effect, and you know this is not to say, I think there was another question about other jurisdictions.

Alondra Garza (she/her): I think we're seeing in terms of the criminal legal response to stock in its kind of across the landscape, I don't think it's a unique problem to one particular jurisdiction there's just so many definitional issues and.

Alondra Garza (she/her): Identification and sort of difficulties and being able to identify and investigate and then prosecute these cases.

TK Logan: it's also a pattern based crime, so it just takes more investigation effort not necessarily a ton more but definitely more because it's usually two or more acts that are connected.

TK Logan: IE it's a pattern based crime that's a very different mind shift or law enforcement, who are used to incident based crimes.

TK Logan: And the other unique piece of it is this most laws require emotional distress fear fear of or concern for safety and so again, you can corroborate fear that's easy to do but it's just an extra step.

Judy Postmus (she & her): or any of you aware of research on the rate of stalking with air tags or other bluetooth devices.

TK Logan: know, but the stories are terrifying yes and it's very new so I don't think we, you know it's new and sexy and it's getting lots of media play and but I don't know.

TK Logan: Any studies that have come out with prevalence or anything like that, at this point.

Alondra Garza (she/her): I mean.

Judy Postmus (she & her): I was gonna say the media has picked up air tags but.

Judy Postmus (she & her): There have been stalking devices out for at least a decade or so, so this is not necessarily a new problem it's a problem.

Judy Postmus (she & her): But I don't think that the research has really been successful on any of that area okay so natalie Muslims, as has there been any research on whether coven restrictions isolation and quarantine have affected the rate at which are the level to which victims have experienced stalking.

TK Logan: So I i'll go ahead Lisa please.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): I was gonna say though I I there's been a lot of research that has been looking at intimate partner violence broadly experienced during the pandemic and I did a study here in the state of Michigan with one of my colleagues, and we did.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): We did not adequately capture stalking experiences, though, but we did find that among among survivors of IPTV there were more frequent and more severe incidences of IPTV.

Lisa Fedina (she/her): But that's a great question go ahead tk.

TK Logan: yeah so i've looked for that specifically there's anecdotal.

TK Logan: Stories out there, I wonder, I mean but there hasn't been I agree, I don't think there's been good research on that, for whatever reason, but I do wonder about if there's more cyber stalking that took place given we were.

TK Logan: relegated home we're not going out but we had to use the Internet and all of those tools more but.

TK Logan: We just haven't we haven't seen that just yet yeah.

Judy Postmus (she & her): natalie also asked is there any research regarding the rate in which criminal cases involving stalking are resolved using clear agreements with lesser charges that would prevent law enforcement from identifying past stalking history.

Alondra Garza (she/her): i'm not aware, but I think like we were all mentioning you know, very few cases, end up and arrest that and our charge for stock gain so much less moving on to prosecution I think estimates of.

Alondra Garza (she/her): 10 20% of cases, maybe, so I at least i'm not aware of any research specifically looking at sort of plea agreements within stalking, but I think my colleagues might also have different insight.

TK Logan: So yeah stalking charges are sometimes used to play i'm not 100% sure what the question was asking, but I do know, stalking charges at least locally, have been used in the past.

TK Logan: You char tire and then it comes down in please, so that it looks like you're not seeing them but we're not.

TK Logan: I even think in our local jurisdiction, even those initial charges for stalking have gone way down our police department is really low on personnel, right now, so I feel like some of these crimes are not getting as much attention as maybe they need to to so there it's just a complicated.

TK Logan: yeah.

Judy Postmus (she & her): One more question and sorry I couldn't get through them all again the PowerPoint has the information of the speakers, you can reach them by email.

Judy Postmus (she & her): And an anonymous attendee asked what's the difference between stalking and harassment, I would imagine all stalking involves harassment, but where does it cross line.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Or is there a line that's my question.

TK Logan: So that line is fear or concern for safety, and you know it's one thing.

TK Logan: To be pursued, or to be contacted repeatedly and maybe that's annoying maybe you're avoiding that person, but you're not necessarily afraid for your safety.

TK Logan: That is when legally it crosses that line, and that is what makes the most sense to me when you're trying to differentiate between sort of harassment.

TK Logan: And I remember it's the harm is that fear is that adrenaline 24 seven in addition fears related to assault it's higher when there's been an assault it's higher when there's forced confrontations more threats.

TK Logan: And it's higher when there is more life sabotage So these are documentable harms that come from.

TK Logan: You know, being stalked and then, if you think about you know the third component, that we have, and when we talk about how you document cases for stalking is victim resistance and stalker persistence so victims, who are being stuck taking numerous.

TK Logan: spend life many, many hours MIT much money if they have it on changing their phone numbers staying somewhere else.

TK Logan: All these accommodations at work to keep themselves safe and looking at how those things How did the stalker respond to those and then documenting those things.

TK Logan: Are harassment is just does seems like a lower level of that whole dynamic as well, but again, it just goes back to the victim, for your I think.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Well, I just want to thank you all again, thank you to.

Judy Postmus (she & her): Lisa dina and laundry Garza and tk Logan for this wonderful discussion today on socking and again, thank you for your time and energy for all those who came today appreciate you being here, thank you all have a good night.

guys.

Thank you.