Stats

Stalking has been estimated that more than a million women and nearly half a million men are stalked in the United States each year. Similar to other forms of violence against women, the overwhelming majority of victims, 78%, are women, and the majority of offenders, 87%, are men. It has also been noted that women with disabilities and Deaf women experience stalking at higher rates and in different ways that other victims of stalking.

In General

More than one million women and 370,000 men are stalked each year.
87% of stalkers are male. 94% of female victims have male stalkers, and 60% of men have male stalkers.¹
More than half of stalking victims are between 18 and 29 years old.
Only 23% of female victims and 36% of male victims are stalked by strangers.
76% of female murder victims were stalked by an intimate partner in the year prior to the murder².

It is assumed by practioners and researchers in the field that women with disabilities and Deaf women are just as likely, if not more likely, than other women to experience stalking. Research is needed to develop a more comprehensive understanding.

Statistics and more information on stalking and violence can be located at the Stalking Resource Center .

Note: Some of the resources listed in this section are available as PDF files. In order to view PDFs you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have this software installed, you can download Acrobat Reader for free on Adobe's web site.

print this page

email this page

back to previous page

¹Tjaden, Patricia and Nancy Thoennes.Stalking in America: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey.[Note: this link will download a PDF file]

²McFarlane, Judith M., Jacqueline C. Campbell, Susan Wilt, Carolyn J. Sachs, Yvonne Ulrich, and Xiao Xu. “Stalking and Intimate Partner Femicide,” Homicide Studies, 3 (4) (1999): 300-316. Sage Publications, Inc.