During testimony this week, the bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Lauren Davis, said the state’s current system favors the stalker instead of the victim.
, which would expand the definition of stalking so that it is easier to call stalking acts a crime. The bill unanimously passed in the House, but still needs to make its way through the Senate to go on the books.
“It’s emotional, it’s not necessarily a physical injury. It is based on the acts of the suspect — the stalking, the terrorizing, text messages, emails, phone calls, et cetera. That is a real issue, that is a real thing for a victim, but as the current law is, that is oftentimes not enough for cases to move forward,” Lowe explained. “So with the proposed changes, it will allow those issues, that fear, to be a viable part of a prosecutable case.
“We have, for all intents and purposes, decriminalized this insidious behavior,” Davis said. “It is incredibly difficult to charge and to prove.”“About half of all stalking victims who are murdered actually reported their stalking,” she said. “But unfortunately … often those reports are not taken seriously because the individual acts of stalking on their own are typically not criminal in nature, and they may not appear threatening to someone who doesn’t understand the context.
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