This new report explores the police and CPS’s response to victims of stalking and harassment and provides recommendations for best practice. The introduction suggests that victim testimonies point to stalking affecting all ages and backgrounds in society. They found that stalking was often misunderstood by the police and the CPS and went unrecognised. The report suggests a single accepted definitions of stalking and harassment would help combat this problem leading the way for stalking specific powers to be used to search premises and seize evidence. The authors also identified that crime recording for these types of crimes are often inaccurate and this is important in terms of allocating police resources to decide where and how to allocate officers and how to spend local budgets. Another finding is that the police often do not see the bigger picture from the victims point of view, as they continue to record single events rather than looking at a pattern of offending behaviour.
You can view a copy of the report here.
