SPRINGFIELD – Stalkers can use many means of emotional distress to harass their victims. In order to protect innocent people from harassment, State Senator Mike Halpin led a measure to define emotionally distressing harassment as stalking.
“Survivors of stalking are often the targets of manipulative, frightful and privacy violating actions that cause deep emotional distress,” said Halpin (D-Rock Island). “Whether it’s creating a disturbance at a survivor’s school, following them in a public place or keeping them under surveillance, we need to ensure stalkers are identified and prosecuted.”
The legislation will expand the definition of stalking to include harassment that causes emotional distress – and more clearly defines emotionally distressing harassment. These kinds of conduct include creating a disturbance at the petitioner's place of employment or school, repeatedly telephoning the petitioner's place of employment, home, or residence, continuing to follow the petitioner about in a public place or places, among other items.
According to a study by the NCVRW, stalking is often under-identified by the justice system and under-reported by survivors. Stalking is also a concerning issue on college campuses, with 18-24 year olds experiencing the highest stalking rates, women and minority college students being at a higher risk and 41% of undergraduate students having experienced tech-facilitated stalking according to the University of Illinois.
“People have a right to feel secure in their homes, at their workplace and throughout their day to day life,” said Halpin. “Stalkers are willing to go after everything in a person’s life to try to get to them. There is no room for anyone in Illinois who takes part in this kind of behavior and we must crack down on this behavior immediately.”
House Bill 2873 passed the Senate and heads to the governor for further consideration.
