Stalking Recidivism: A Comparison of Operational Definitions

The criminal offense of stalking is somewhat different to other offenses due to the repetitive, innocuous, and often multifaceted nature of the crime. Given that stalking constitutes a number of different behaviors, such as violence and threats, research on stalking recidivism becomes difficult as recidivism can be defined in a number of ways. This study utilized a dataset of Western Australia Police Force incident reports, comprising a sample of 404 stalking offenders. Survival curves and a binomial logistic regression were used to determine time to recidivism and predictors of recidivism, using four different definitions of recidivism. Predictor variables included age of the offender, prior history of criminal charges, and offender ethnicity. The four definitions ranged from narrow (a new stalking charge) to broad (any new criminal charge). The results of the study show that stalkers reoffend quickly, however our understanding of how fast and which offender characteristics predict recidivism, is dependent on how we define recidivism. This highlights the importance of considering how stalking recidivism is defined in future works and may explain current differences in stalking recidivism findings.