November 9, 2009

Talking About Stalking: Interviews with Chicago Patrol Officers

Jody Raphael Senior Research Fellow

www.law.depaul.edu/family

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ACKNOWLEDGEMNETS

Interviewing police officers is disruptive to police district routine and keeps the officers off the street and away from their regular duties. We are grateful to the Chicago Police Department for its cooperation with this project and for providing us the opportunity to hear directly from patrol officers, detectives, and domestic violence liaisons about their experiences. All too often the voices of those who are most affected by new laws and policies and who have to implement them are not heard.

All the police officers interviewed for this study impressed us with their intelligence, integrity, and dedication to their jobs. Many identified barriers or issues, discussed in this report, which we believe deserve further exploration.

The author wishes to thank in particular senior staff on the Research and Development Division of the Chicago Police Department for their thoughtful assistance in the organization and implementation of this research project.

Data was provided by and belongs to the Chicago Police Department. Any further use of this data must be approved by the Chicago Police Department.

Points of view or opinions contained within this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the Chicago Police Department.

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Introduction

Although research has documented that stalking represents a particularly dangerous and often lethal aspect of domestic violence, data show that Illinois stalking laws go underutilized. This research study reports on interviews with 40 Chicago Department of Police patrol officers and detectives in the spring of 2009, undertaken to hear from them why the law is so rarely used and what barriers might exist to bringing stalking charges in Chicago.

Stalking Prevalence

Recently the U.S. Department of Justice (Baum, Catalano, & Rand, 2009) reported on national research conducted in June 2006 with a sample of 65,270 persons, finding an estimated 3.4 million individuals age 18 or older (or 14 per 1,000 individuals) were victims of stalking during a 12-month period. Stalking was defined as a course of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.

Of those who were stalked, 30% were stalked by current or former intimate partners and 45% by someone known to them (a friend, acquaintance, or relative). More than 1 in 4 stalking victims reported that some form of cyberstalking was employed, such as e-mail, instant messaging, or voice mail. About half the stalking victims experienced at least one unwanted contact per week, and 11% said they had been stalked for 5 years or more.

Effects of Stalking

Research indicates that stalking behavior can predict physical violence or even death. The Intimate Partner Stalking and Femicide Study (McFarlane et. al., 1999) found that 76% of female intimate partner victims had been stalked by their murderer and 85% of attempted femicide victims had been stalked by their intimate partners in the prior year. In a recent study of orders of protection in one jurisdiction, a history of stalking was associated with a subsequent violation of the order of protection. Research studies also find that stalkers are likely to commit more violence than non-stalkers. The recent Department of Justice research report (Baum, Catalano, & Rand, 2009) found property damage (24%) and physical attacks (21%) to be associated with the stalking.

Stalking is associated with significant victim distress, due to fear of death and the fear that this form of harassment will never end. One study (Blaauw, Winkel, Arensman, Sheridan, & Freeve, 2002) found its sample of stalking victims had mental health symptoms comparable to psychiatric outpatient populations and that about 75% had symptom levels that indicated the presence of at least one psychiatric disorder.

Reporting to the Police

In the 2009 Department of Justice study only 41% of female stalking victims reported the matter to the police. In that survey, only 53.6% of respondents who met the definition of stalking understood that the unwanted contacts or harassing behaviors met legal definitions of stalking.

Illinois Stalking Laws

Illinois law makes stalking a Class 4 felony, and a second conviction a Class 3 felony (Illinois Criminal Code Sections 12.7.3 et. seq.). Illinois laws have defined stalking as two instances of surveillance or following a person, combined with a threat of harm or reasonable apprehension of bodily harm. Because prosecutors reported that many instances of stalking did not fit within the Illinois definition of surveillance or following a person, the Illinois General Assembly has modified Illinois stalking laws. Effective January 2010 (HB2542, 2009) the offenses of stalking and cyberstalking are defined as a

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“course of conduct” directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of a third person or suffer other emotional distress. “Course of conduct” is defined as 2 or more acts, including but not limited to acts in which a defendant directly, indirectly, or through third parties, by an action, method, device, or means follows, monitors, observes, surveils, threatens, or communicates to or about, a person, engages in other non-consensual contact, or interferes with or damages a person’s property or pet.

Illinois Stalking Law as a Tool

The Illinois stalking law is an effective tool that can be used to charge serious abusers with a felony whose entire course of conduct places their partners or ex-partners in real fear. The felony provisions of Illinois stalking laws provide a penalty reasonably commensurate with the harms of stalking and the strong association of stalking with physical harm and death.

Low numbers of stalking cases charged indicate that this tool has largely going unused in the City of Chicago.

Stalking Reports in Chicago

The Chicago Police Department has provided data on the number of stalking incidents written up by patrol officers. These numbers are displayed in the Appendix to this report in Tables 1 through 4 at pages 9 through 12. The historic data system in place at the Chicago Police Department generally indicates only the highest-ranking crime in an incident with more than one crime; however, individual reports are generally written for each crime in an incident. Although there is some fluctuation, numbers are low and have decreased since 1999. In 2008, there were a total of 188 non-criminal stalking offense case reports (the first stalking report; a stalking report requires a minimum of two reports) and 187 second reports, for a total of 375 in all police districts, down from 475 in 1999 and 503 in 2000.

Chicago Stalking Arrests

Data (Chicago Police Department Website, 2009) indicate that the number of stalking arrests, although never high, have been trending downward between 1999-2007. These data are displayed in Table 5 in the Appendix on page 13. There were a total of 8 stalking arrests in Chicago in 2008.

Chicago is typical of other jurisdictions; nationwide stalking arrests are rare. One pioneering study (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2001) found that although 16.5% of all domestic violence incident reports filed in Colorado Springs, Colorado involved stalking, all but one was charged with a lesser offense- harassment, violation of an order of protection, or another nonstalking domestic violence crime. In Florida in 2005 (Klein, 2009) police arrested 64,000 persons for domestic violence, but only 383 for stalking, when, according to research estimates, 88,000 individuals would have been stalked that year in the state.

Why Are There So Few Stalking Reports in Chicago? Purpose of This Research

All stalking charges must be preceded by at least 2 police reports. Because the Chicago Police Department is the first responder, this research study decided to focus on police patrol officers and detectives in an effort to identify barriers to the effective use of Illinois stalking laws. Although the first Illinois stalking law was enacted in 1992, some have voiced the opinion that police officers need better training in its provisions. Another hypothesis is that stalking laws always involve a course of

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conduct, a minimum of two occurrences, which is difficult for a patrol officer, who usually responds to a single incident, to effectively deal with, because the first stalking incident is considered non-criminal. Others have speculated that those who are stalked do not know about the law and do not describe to patrol officers those elements of stalking that have occurred. Perhaps because physical violence often coexists with the stalking, battered women mention only the battery because they believe it is more likely to result in an arrest of the abuser. Lastly, some believe that Illinois’s limited definition of stalking makes it difficult to write up stalking police reports.

We decided to talk to police officers themselves to determine which, if any, of these hypotheses were correct. Because training about the new Illinois stalking law will undoubtedly occur before January 2010, we hope that information from this research study would be useful to the Chicago Police Department as it goes about this task.

Research Design

After the Chicago Police Department reviewed our research request between January and mid-March 2009, we were permitted to interview 18 officers in the Patrol Division in 3 districts, 6 from the Detective Division, and approximately 16 from among the domestic violence liaison officers. Districts with high volumes of domestic violence-related police calls were chosen; all, as it turned out, were low-income areas in Chicago. Patrolmen and women in all three shifts were interviewed. In addition, detectives serving in the 3 selected districts were interviewed.

Area commanders selected personnel for interview; in many instances, volunteers were solicited first. Usually police personnel were interviewed in pairs; when schedules prevented this, one-on-one interviews occurred. All interviews, conducted in person using a standard interview questionnaire, occurred between April and the end of June 2009.

Limitations

Because only 18 police officers in 3 districts were interviewed, we cannot say with any certainty that their views and experiences reflect those of officers in other districts. We therefore do not present these opinions as representative of the entire police force. In addition, these observations represent only the attitudes and views of the police officers and are not presented as the truth of the matter. Information in this report should be viewed as focus group findings that can identify barriers affecting use of stalking statutes for discussion and to inform efforts to encourage better use of Illinois stalking laws to curtail violence and threats of violence from stalkers.

FINDINGS

Knowledge of the Illinois stalking laws

Every police officer interviewed was entirely conversant with the specifics of Illinois stalking laws. Lack of knowledge is not a barrier identified by this research study. In addition, police officers did not indicate that the previous narrow definition of stalking in the Illinois law was a barrier.

Barriers Identified by Police Officers and Detectives

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Patrol officers said they did not come upon many domestic violence victims who complained about stalking. In addition, most patrol officers said they do not have the time and/or do not take the time

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to get a complete history or course of conduct of the domestic violence when they respond to a 911 call.

Patrol officers said they respond to as many as 5-10 domestic violence calls on their daily watches, and some said the number was as high as 8 or 10-12 on the midnight watch. Numbers are higher on weekends and holidays, and the summer can be “insane.” Officers said they had to respond as quickly as possible and large backups developed.

Many patrol officers remarked they did not think that many victims know about stalking and the Illinois law making it a felony. Several said that victims’ lack of knowledge of stalking, combined with the high level of crime in their district, make victims tolerant of stalking behavior. Several believed stalking might be more of a higher income crime. Others stated it differently; individuals swing back and forth, in and out of the relationship, with it impossible to tell at any given time if the relationship is on-going. In this kind of fluid situation it is difficult for victims or police officers to label the behavior as stalking. For example, if the victim has invited the perpetrator in to the home the day before, then is it stalking the next day when the perpetrator hangs around on the porch and demands to be let in? Training needs to clarify these issues.

Another said police officers know the stalking law but don’t understand what stalking is: “If the abuser keeps driving by his ex-partner’s house they don’t recognize that as stalking.”

On the other hand, one patrol officer stated that it was the perpetrators who knew the law and also understood how far they could go with their victim. In other words, he is not going to sit in front of the house but he will be down the block: “He knows how far he can take it.”

Some detectives said that the officers don’t put the stalking elements in the report even if they know about them; some patrol officers and detectives said their supervisors don’t like the charge and make them change it to a misdemeanor because it is too much work to obtain a felony stalking charge and the prosecutor often won’t approve one anyway. There was a general sense that for the Chicago Police Department stalking charges were not considered important. One patrol officer said that the practice was to classify an incident as a battery even though there were stalking elements: “The hierarchy goes to the battery.”

All the detectives interviewed pointed out, however, that stalking was involved in most violations of orders of protection and the behavior was not being charged as stalking. One detective told of a male who upon release from prison began calling his ex-partner, hiding under her porch, and beating her. He was charged with a violation of an order of protection but not stalking.

Cyberstalking Patrol officers said they do get reports of cyberstalking, particularly telephone and voice mail threats. They believed that death threats via telephone and e-mail should be taken seriously. Some officers said they thought there had been an increase in this kind of telephone harassment lately.

However, as one officer said, “We don’t know what to do with them.” Several said that the detectives are not interested in them unless the case involves a celebrity. Often the detective response is “Change your telephone number.” Another detective said that state’s attorneys don’t take cyberstalking cases seriously although they are “very dangerous.” Misdemeanor cases, instead of felony stalking, are the result.

For all these reasons, some officers believe a special cyberstalking police detective unit needs to handle these cases with the requisite degree of expertise and seriousness, with good cooperation from the State’s Attorney’s Office.

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Separating Non-serious Cases from the Serious Pursuing stalking charges involves obtaining permission from the State’s Attorney’s office for a felony arrest. Patrol officers and detectives had a lot to say, detailed below, about barriers preventing the Chicago Police Department from separating serious cases from the non-serious and pursuing felony charges against dangerous abusers in their districts. This general failure prevents deployment of felony stalking charges as one strategy to deter serious abusers.

The high volume of calls to 911 requiring response prevents police officers from spending more time with the more serious cases, which uniformly frustrates the officers who often believe they are “spinning their wheels” with minor spats and fights involving alcohol and drugs that clog up the system.

Of concern to almost all the patrol officers was that the people most needing help were not calling the police and those that did were using 911 to have the police settle their arguments for them; they said that many women call as a method of getting a drunk or abusive partner out of the house where no physical harm has occurred. Often in the more serious cases the victim does not want to talk with the police or drops the charges, which is frustrating to patrol officers. Patrol officers talked of cases in which the victim was killed in their area and had never called the police for help.

All domestic violence police reports are reviewed by area detectives in the Special Victims Unit, who do follow-up in the more serious matters, trying to effectuate arrests and felony upgrades. All detectives interviewed stated that their goals were to obtain as many arrests as possible in domestic violence cases. The detectives pointed out, however, that the high volume of domestic violence police reports prevented them from properly focusing on or triaging the cases.

None of the patrol officers knew about the Chicago Police Department’s Domestic Violence Liaison program or could name their district’s Domestic Violence Liaison Officer. According to the Chicago Police Department website, domestic violence liaisons work out of the Community Policing Office, facilitating police/community domestic violence partnerships. They are also to keep abreast of changes in domestic violence law and services as a district-based resource. Clearly, these liaisons are currently focused on the outside community and do not appear to serve any functions as backups to patrol officers in their work.

Another frustrating factor for patrol officers is police inability to catch the serious abuser, who also can’t be served with an order of protection. Each patrol officer cited examples of serious cases in which they had taken the victim to the hospital for treatment, but the abuser could never be found for arrest.

Other patrol officers said that sometimes the alleged abuser is on parole, but parole officers “don’t want to deal with domestic violence.”

Patrol officers said that they never heard about the disposition of the cases in which arrests were made or which were investigated by the Special Victims Unit in the Detective Division unless they were called to testify in court, which rarely happened. Patrol officers said they did not believe they were part of a general strategy against domestic violence in their police district.

About half the patrol officers decried the inability of the police department to isolate the repeat cases and to develop a strategy for dealing with repeat or serious abusers in their areas. Such an approach could include felony upgrades and use of stalking charges as opposed to misdemeanor charges that would merely result in probation; special efforts to find fugitives from justice; and use of evidence-based prosecutions that do not depend on the testimony of the victim.

One detective suggested a special field committee for each district to develop new approaches to serious, repeat offenders. Such a field committee would consist of members from the patrol and

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detective divisions as well as a representative from the State’s Attorneys felony review office. “That would put everyone on the same page” and build cooperative partnerships for more serious approaches. The new stalking law would be an important tool in such an effort.

Summary of Findings

This research found no evidence for any of the hypotheses about barriers to stalking charges except one—victims do not know about stalking or do not often mention it. Officers do not have the time to obtain the entire history of the battering and have not been trained to ask about stalking. The low number of stalking reports reflects this fact, as well as the Chicago Police Department Patrol Division’s general failure of a system to isolate serious domestic violence cases and charge them accordingly. Illinois stalking laws are one important tool that could be used if this effort were made a priority.

Recommendations

As stalking requires a course of conduct—at least 2 documented occurrences—the patrol officer is key in writing up and documenting stalking. Although patrol officers have been well-trained on the specifics of Illinois stalking laws, from our interviews it is clear that patrol officers do not understand how stalking can be used in serious abuse cases; they appear to lack direction and need leadership from the top to view the laws as an important tool for apprehending and holding serious abusers accountable. Officers should be trained to always ask about stalking behavior when interviewing individuals who appear to be victims of serious violence. Stalking charges should always be explored in violations of orders of protection.

Patrol officers believe that the incidence of cyberstalking is increasing but felt that the Chicago Police Department and the State’s Attorneys Office had yet to develop expertise in this area. The Chicago Police Department should consider how best to effectively respond to cyberstalking complaints in an appropriately serious manner.

Patrol officers uniformly decried the Department’s present inability to isolate and respond appropriately to serious abuse cases in their districts. The Domestic Violence Liaison Program appears to currently serve a different function. Other vehicles will be needed to pull resources together to better deploy legal remedies that are currently available and the new stalking laws that will come into effect in January 2010. Such structures will need to involve the felony unit of the State’s Attorneys Office as a full partner.

As a start, the Chicago Police Department should set goals for increasing felony arrests in domestic violence cases, using both battery and stalking laws.

Page 9 Appendix

Stal

king

Inci

dent

s Ci

ty o

f Ch

icag

o

Ann

ual D

ata:

199

9-20

08

Tabl

e 1

Page 10

Stalking Incidents City of Chicago by CPD District

Annual Data: 2005-2008

Table 2

Page 11

Stalking Incidents City of Chicago by CPD District

Annual Data: 2005-2008

Table 3

Page 12

Stalking Incidents City of Chicago by CPD District

Annual Data: 2005-2008

Table 4

Page 13

Table 5

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Stalking 22 25 15 14 15 11 6 3 3 7

Aggravated 17 10 12 8 6 4 2 1 0 1

Annual Chicago Stalking Arrests

Source: Chicago Police Department Annual Reports

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REFERENCES

Baum, K., Catalano, S., & Rand, M. (2009). Stalking victimization in the United States. Washington, D.C: National Institute of Justice, available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/svus.pdf

Blaauw, E., Winkel, F., Arensman, E., Sheridan, L. & Freeve, A. (2002). The toll of stalking: The relationship between features of stalking and psychopathology of victims. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17, 1, 50-63.

Chicago Police Department web site: https://portal.chicagopolice.org

HB2542 (2009), text available at http:www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=09600HB2542sam002&GA=96&S

Klein, A. (2009). Offenders and the criminal justice system. In E. Stark & E. Buzawa (Eds), Violence against women in families and relationships, volume 3 (pp.115-136). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

McFarlane, J. et. al. (1999). Stalking and intimate partner femicide. Homicide Studies, 3, 4, 300-316.

Tjaden, P., & Thoennes, N. (2001). Stalking: Its role in serious domestic violence cases. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, available at http: www.ncjrs.gov/App?Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=187346