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This page considers overseas law regarding stalking.
It covers -
Stalker legislation overseas reflects the shape of existing
statute/common law and political expediency in developing
new legislation that is specific to stalking or cyberstalking.
New Zealand
In New Zealand stalking has been - or might be - addressed
through a range of enactments such as the Harassment
Act 1997, the Domestic Violence Act 1995,
the Telecommunications Act 2001 and the Crimes
Act 1961.
The Harassment Act 1997 prohibits harassment
via
watching,
loitering, preventing, following, making contact (whether
by telephone, correspondence or any other way), giving,
leaving, bringing attention to any offence material,
entering, interfering with property
that
would cause a reasonable person to fear for his/her safety.
Angela Maxwell notes that in relation to cyberstalking
the Act has not been definitely tested and that
it
is uncertain if threats made within the cyber-world,
can cause a reasonable person to fear for his/her safety.
Use
of the Telecommunications Act 2001 has not been
tested. The Act prohibits "offensive language"
and "disturbing use" of any device capable of
being used for transmitting or receiving any communications
over a network designed for the transmission of voice
communication. In principle the Act would encompass use
of personal computer for a communication with the intention
of offending the recipient through profane, indecent,
or obscene language.
UK
In Britain the Protection from
Harassment Act 1997 seeks to prevent stalking and
"other similar unsocial conduct". It extends
the Malicious Communications Act 1988. There
is a succinct outline in the Scotland Yard Police
Manual on Stalking (PDF).
The Criminal Justice & Police Act 2001 introduced
an offence of "collective harassment" (aiding,
abetting, counselling or procuring harassment).
Both enactments refer to harassment rather than stalking
and concern those "courses of conduct, on at least
two occasions" where an individual is subjected to
persistent behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress
outside existing civil and criminal law. UK courts are
able to impose a restraining order on the offender, including
instances where a victim seeks protection after an offender
has served time for a criminal offence.
There is no specific cyberstalking legislation.
The UK stalking regime is underpinned by the Crime
& Disorder Act 1998 and the Anti-social Behaviour
Act 2003, under which police or local authorities
may seek an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO)
against an individual who is who is menacing or annoying
others. It is concerned with activity that must cause
or be likely to cause "harassment, alarm or distress
to one or more persons not of the same household".
The Order is made by a judge and is for a minimum of two
years. Breaching an ASBO is a criminal offence, with a
prison term of up to five years.
The 1997 Harassment Act is wide-ranging. In 2006 for example
Gina Singh was awarded £35,000 damages in action
against mother-in-law Dalbir Kaur Bhakar after an arranged
marriage went wrong. Ms Singh claimed that over four months
she endured a 17-hour daily regime of housework, was forced
to bleach her skin and cut her hair, and was severely
restricted from contact with her family.
Eire
In Eire Section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against
the Person Act 1997 (NOAP) updated what the Law Reform
Commission characterised as archaic protection in enactments
such as the Conspiracy & Protection of Property
Act 1875. It provides
that
Any
person who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse,
by any means including by use of the telephone, harasses
another by persistently following, watching, pestering,
besetting or communicating with him or her
is
guilty of the offence of harassment. That embraces instances
where a person
(a)
by his or her acts intentionally or recklessly, seriously
interferes with the other's peace and privacy or causes
alarm, distress or harm to the other, and
(b) his or her acts are such that a reasonable person
would realise that the acts would seriously interfere
with the other's peace and privacy or cause alarm, distress
or harm to the other.
Canada
In Canada section 264 of the federal Criminal Code prohibits
stalking, with a maximum penalty of a five year prison
term. The offence encompasses action to
- repeatedly
follow another person, or anyone known to them, from
place to place
-
repeatedly communicate with, either directly or indirectly,
the other person or anyone known to them
- "beset"
or watch a place where the other person is visiting,
lives or works or
-
engage in threatening conduct directed at the other
person or any member of their family.
Other
elements of the Criminal Code prohibit trespassing on
another person's property at night, uttering threats,
indecent or harassing phone calls, intimidation and mischief
to another's property.
US
In the US the anti-stalking regime features federal and
state legislation. US states essentially retain primary
jurisdiction over
cyberstalking, with federal law filling gaps regarding
interstate/international communications.
Section 223 of the US code makes it a federal crime, punishable
by up to two years in prison, to use a telephone or telecommunications
device to annoy, abuse, harass, or threaten any person
at the called number. It applies only to direct communications
between the stalker and victim. It would thus not encompass
harassment through posting messages on a bulletin board
or in a chat room to encourage third parties to harass
the victim.
The federal Interstate Anti-Stalking Punishment &
Prevention Act (IAPPA)
of 1996 extends anti-stalking provisions in the 1994 Violent
Crime Control & Law Enforcement Act in an attempt
to create a uniform federal law protecting victims when
they travel across a state line or onto federal property
(eg military bases). It criminalises crossing a state
line to stalk someone in violation of a restraining order.
The legislation makes it a crime for any person to travel
across state lines with the intent to injure or harass
another person and, in the course thereof, place that
person (or a member of that individual's family) in a
reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.
A 1998 federal statute (18 USC 2425) seeks to protect
children against cyberstalking. Under that law it is a
federal crime to use any means of interstate or foreign
commerce (including a telephone line or the net) to knowingly
communicate with any person with intent to solicit or
entice a child into unlawful sexual activity.
Critics have noted weaknesses in the federal legislation.
The 1998 statute for example does not encompass harassing
communications where there is no evident intent to entice
or solicit the child for illicit sexual purposes. Requirement
in the 1996 Act for physical travel across state lines
means that it is largely inapplicable to cyberstalking
cases.
Victims have instead often turned to state legislation,
such as the 1993 Michigan AntiStalking Act and the 1990
and 1998 Californian Acts. The latter specifies cyberstalking
as a criminal act. Michigan was the first US state to
specifically identify online communications in its statutes
against stalking, with harassment through unconsented
contact including sending mail or "electronic communications".
In 1994 Michigan was the first state to charge someone
with cyberstalking, with prosecution (ended through a
no contest plea) of Andrew Archambeau for refusal to stop
sending email to a woman he met through a computer dating
agency.
Other critics have attacked "piecemeal and unconsidered
extension" of existing federal legislation, for example
the 2006 Violence Against Women & Department of
Justice Reauthorization Act that amends the Communications
Act of 1934 through prohibition of anonymous annoying
electronic messages (S113. Preventing Cyberstalking')
-
Whoever
-
(1) in interstate or foreign communications-
(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly
-
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and (ii) initiates
the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion,
proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene,
lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to
annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
(B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly
-
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and (ii) initiates
the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion,
proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene
or indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication
is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the
maker of such communication placed the call or initiated
the communication;
(C) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications
device, whether or not conversation or communication
ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent
to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the
called number or who receives the communications;
(D) makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly
or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person
at the called number; or
(E) makes repeated telephone calls or repeatedly initiates
communication with a telecommunications device, during
which conversation or communication ensues, solely to
harass any person at the called number or who receives
the communication; or
(2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility
under his control to be used for any activity prohibited
by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for
such activity, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned
not more than two years, or both.
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