If you search the internet for “how to prevent stalking,” you will probably find a list of tips that tell you what to do or what not to do in order to keep yourself safe. While these tips can be helpful, they are not always easy to follow or effective. Avoiding all the places or situations that could be “risky” is not realistic. This approach also places responsibility on individuals to protect themselves, rather than on those who cause harm.
There is another way to prevent stalking. By building safer, healthier communities, we can address the issue on a much broader scale before it even starts and reduce the need to constantly worry about protecting ourselves from harm.
How Can We Prevent Stalking?
Stalking often happens along with sexual, dating, and domestic violence, and it can be a warning sign of other kinds of violence. Stalking, sexual violence, dating violence, and domestic violence share many of the same risk and protective factors:
- A risk factor is something that makes violence more likely, such as poverty, lack of resources, weak community support, or a culture that ignores obsessive and violent behavior.
- A protective factor is something that helps keep people safe and healthy, thereby reducing the likelihood of violence. Examples include strong support networks, access to helpful services, shared resources, and neighbors who look out for one another.
Because stalking, sexual violence, dating violence, and domestic violence are connected and share many of the same risk and protective factors, we can use some of the same strategies to help prevent them. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these are strategies we can use to prevent stalking and related violence:
- Teach people how to build safe and healthy relationships
- Educate community members so they can recognize stalking and learn how to address it
- Create and implement policies and practices that support safe and healthy relationships
- Design places and spaces that are safe and easy for everyone to use
What’s My Role in Preventing Stalking?
Each of us can help prevent stalking. If we all work together to make health and safety a priority, we have a better chance of creating safe and healthy communities.
Community Members
We can all learn more about stalking, how it affects our communities, and how to speak up for changes that make people safer in our communities. Visit the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center for more information, training, and resources on how to prevent stalking.
Parents, Educators & Mentors
Parents, teachers, mentors, and other trusted adults can model and teach kids how to have healthy relationships. This includes good communication, peaceful problem-solving, setting boundaries, consent, empathy, and respect. In fact, the CDC offers a list of evidence-based programs that address these topics, including a free online Dating Matters curriculum.
School Administrators & Educators
Schools and campuses can survey students about their school environment and create policies and practices to make learning safe and supportive for everyone. You can supplement healthy relationship education in class with youth leadership programs, mentorship, and campaigns that promote safe and healthy relationships outside the classroom. The National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning Environments offers information and resources you can use to create safe and supportive learning environments for all students.
Business Owners & Managers
Workplaces and businesses can make sure their spaces are safe, train employees to recognize and respond to stalking, and create clear policies and practices to protect workers. The National Resource Center’s Workplaces Respond to Domestic and Sexual Violence Toolkit can get you started.
Healthcare Providers
Health care providers can talk with all patients about healthy and unhealthy relationships, how violence affects health, and where to find help and support. Read more about evidence-based health care practices that also prevent violence at IPVHealth.org.
Policymakers
Policymakers have an important role in stopping stalking. They can strengthen anti-stalking laws, update laws to include technology-facilitated stalking, study how common stalking is in their state or locality, and provide funding and support for organizations that run prevention programs, train communities, and support survivors.
Community Leaders
Community leaders can hold workshops and online events to teach people about stalking and how to prevent it. They can create awareness campaigns, conduct hotspot mapping to find and adapt areas of their community where stalking happens more often, and learn about and support efforts already underway to end stalking, sexual violence, and domestic violence in their community.
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These are a few ways we can prevent stalking in our communities, but there are many more. The best ways to help will depend on the needs of your own school, workplace, or neighborhood, and the situations in your community. To learn more about stalking in your area, you can contact a local sexual or domestic violence organization. Theycan explain what is already being done, what help is still needed, and how you can get involved. When we all work together and make health and safety a priority, we have a better chance of building safe and healthy communities.
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