Living in fear

Despite laws designed to protect them, some stalking victims are still looking over their shoulders

by Sarah McNaught

Tricia has always considered herself a strong person, but she's had to deal with far too much on her own. She endured years of sexual abuse from her alcoholic father, and her mother died of cancer when Tricia was only 12, leaving her to raise her little brother practically by herself.

So when Tricia turned 18, three years ago, she was happy to move in with Rick, a man 11 years her senior whom she'd begun dating several months before. Rick took good care of her, she says.

"He would give me an allowance to buy clothes or makeup or whatever I needed, so I just assumed it would only get better when I moved in with him," explains Tricia, who works as a drug-store clerk. "Instead, it became a nightmare."

Less than a week after they began living together, Rick gave Tricia a pager and a cellular phone. He ordered her to carry them everywhere so that he could reach her at all times. He told her she could make personal calls only in his presence, and only during the hour after dinner. And Rick's brother Kevin, who practically lived with the couple, harassed her regularly.

"He would make sexual comments and when I told him I would tell Rick, he would threaten to tell people I work with about what my father did, knowing I didn't want anyone to know," Tricia recalls, still visibly shaken by the memory. "He would hint that he could have me if he wanted me and tell me I couldn't get rid of him no matter what I did."

After six months, Tricia couldn't take it any more. "One night, Rick came home from work, and I was sitting in the living room with my bags packed," she says. "I told him I was suffocated, and he told me to get out." She did, moving into a room at a local boarding house.

Tricia never felt that Rick threatened her safety, but Kevin was another story. Every night when she left her drug-store job, she would find Kevin camped out on the stoop of a nearby travel agency. For several months, she says, he followed her everywhere -- in supermarkets, at malls, and even to a doctor's appointment. Then he started calling her. "Gifts" in plain brown packages -- half a dozen porn magazines and 10 pornographic videotapes -- appeared on the steps of her boarding house.

Tricia could not get anyone to help her. Rick refused to listen, and the police told her she had no evidence that Kevin was responsible for the phone calls or the pornography.

"They [the police] basically told me that unless he physically attacks me, I'm on my own," she says. Finally, about four months ago, Rick and Kevin moved to New Hampshire to be with their mother, who is ill. "I'm still getting calls once in a while," says Tricia, "but I can deal with that if it means I don't have to look over my shoulder any more."

Tricia's situation illustrates how far Massachusetts still has to go to protect women (and, in some cases, men) from stalkers, even after adopting legislation designed to do just that. The existing law, passed in 1992, made "willful, malicious, repeated following or harassing" a crime. That was an important step, but in practice, some people have been left unprotected -- especially victims who, like Tricia, are not intimately involved with their stalkers. Efforts to close the gaps in the law have met with mixed results, and critics warn that even the latest proposal -- a multifaceted bill filed by State Senator Pamela Resor (D-Acton) -- could leave victims vulnerable. In fact, some advocates are beginning to question whether changing the law is the answer at all.

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Anti-stalking laws, both in Massachusetts and nationwide, have gone a long way toward addressing a sometimes terrifying problem that affects almost a million women in the US each year, according to the National Institute of Justice. In 1997, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 325 people were convicted of stalking in Massachusetts courts, suggesting that stalkers at least are not going unpunished.

But critics say the law still treats stalking essentially as a form of domestic violence: it targets perpetrators who have romantic or family relationships with their victims, and who directly threaten their victims with bodily harm. People like Tricia, whose stalker was an acquaintance and merely caused her emotional distress, have little recourse.

Resor's proposal aims to change that. Among other provisions, her amendments would reword the law to broaden the definition of stalking, guarantee the confidentiality of victims who file for restraining orders, and compensate them for such expenses as legal fees, relocation, and loss of wages. The bill -- which is being reviewed by a joint legislative committee in preparation for a likely vote by the full legislature -- has gained special attention because the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is supporting it, citing a rash of incidents in which television reporters have been stalked by viewers. Mishelle Michaels, a weather forecaster for local station WHDH (Channel 7), says she was harassed for four years by sexually explicit phone calls from a viewer, and that another viewer followed her to her home and on assignments. And Gail Huff, a WCVB (Channel 5) reporter, says she has received pictures of herself taken without her knowledge while she was on assignment, one of which came with a note stating, "I was with you there." Huff spoke in favor of Resor's bill at a public hearing on March 29, and Michaels submitted a written statement.

The proposal "is my attempt to make it easier for victims of stalking to receive legal help," explains Resor. "The current law appears to be an extension of the existing domestic-violence laws, ruling out a large population of victims, like those in the television industry, who do not know their stalkers."

A key feature of Resor's bill would enable victims of stranger stalking to obtain 209A restraining orders, which make it illegal for someone to come in contact with a person he or she has harassed. Domestic 209As are filed at district court, and violations of the order result in arrest and prosecution. But under the current law, explains Dr. Elaine Alpert, assistant professor of public health and medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, "the 209A can be filed only when someone feels threatened by a current or former spouse, a relative, or someone they have lived with, have children with, or have been seriously dating."

Legislators have tried before to make 209A restraining orders available to more stalking victims. Last year, for example, Senator James Jajuga (D-Methuen) filed an amendment asking that people being stalked by strangers or acquaintances be made eligible for this type of protection. But that was defeated by opponents who argued that such victims can go to superior court to obtain civil restraining orders against their harassers.

The problem with that, critics say, is that unlike 209As, which are free, civil restraining orders come with a potentially hefty fee. According to the civil clerk at Suffolk Superior Court, it costs $185 just to bring such a case before a judge. If the restraining order is granted, it costs another $50 to activate it. Even worse, violating this type of restraining order doesn't always result in prosecution. Three years ago, for instance, more than half of those who violated civil restraining orders in Massachusetts were simply held in contempt and ordered to pay a fine.

Yet experts such as Alpert think it may not be worth trying again to change this portion of the law. "The laws governing 209A are separate from stalking laws, which makes it difficult to amend one law by rewriting another," says Alpert, who is skeptical that the provision would pass after its earlier defeat. "What may be more effective and easier is to waive the fee associated with civil restraining orders and intensify the punishment of those who violate such orders."

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In fact, some advocates say, stronger laws may not be the best way to fight stalking and protect victims. Nancy Scannell, director of public policy for Massachusetts Battered Women's Services, says she supports Resor's attempt but cautions that overlegislating the crime of stalking can be dangerous, especially because some actions that seem menacing to stalking victims fall into the area of constitutionally protected expression.

"There exists the unfortunate reality that certain stalking behavior is perfectly legal," says Scannell. "Thus there have to be other means to prevent such actions without violating civil liberties. It's a very complex issue."

And Rhonda Martinson of the National Battered Women's Justice Project points out that even before stalking laws were on the books, every state had laws about harassment and disorderly conduct. "They may not have been used by prosecutors, but they did exist," says Martinson, who was a prosecutor in Wisconsin for many years. "Apparently, the passage and amending of laws is not enough." What's missing, she says, is "education of prosecutors so that they can use all the laws applicable to such a situation."

One seemingly counterintuitive approach is to make stalking a misdemeanor instead of a felony, which it is now. To prosecute stalking as a misdemeanor would not require concrete proof that the stalker intended physical harm to the victim. Chief Paul Condlin of the Edgartown (Martha's Vineyard) Police Department, who has proposed such legislation, explains that more people could be prosecuted for stalking if the crime were reduced to a misdemeanor, and they would more likely be found guilty.

But until the public is educated, says Rhonda Martinson, juries may not be willing to impose the punishments that certain stalkers deserve. "Education is key here," she says. "That is, education of the public that stranger stalking is a serious issue."

Right now, Martinson explains, "there is little public exposure of stalking as a crime. There are no high-school seminars, leafleting campaigns, or other grassroots attempts to get the word out that this is a serious crime." Without that kind of awareness, she says, juries will remain reluctant to send someone to jail for making unwanted phone calls, sending flowers, writing romantic letters, or even following someone around, the way Kevin did to Tricia.

"It's important to realize that no matter what the laws say, a defense attorney can paint a stalker as nothing more than a socially inept man who is simply in love," Martinson says. "And to many, at a glance, there is no crime in that. But to the victim, their daily lives are being controlled by another person."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.