Editorial . Stalking : the state of the SClence

When Louisa May Alcott penned A Long Fatal Love Chase the first stalking novel ever written in 1866, perhaps her imagination was piqued by the thought that the study of stalking would become a scientific endeavour filled with the passion of pursuit 150 years later. It has become just that. Since the behaviour of stalking was criminalized in California in 1990, a brief interlude of 15 years has seen the publication of 175 studies of stalkers and their victims worthy of meta-analysis (Spitzberg, 2006), and the world's scientific literature on stalking is bolstered by dozens of new studies each year. What have we learned, and where should we go from here? Although defini­ tions of the crime of stalking vary, there seems to be a legal consensus that three elements are necessary: an intentional activity, a credible threat and the induc­ tion of fear in the victim. Various definitions of these elements exist across state and federal jurisdictions in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, and it seems apparent that there must be a pattern of unwanted pursuit, the behaviour must pose an implicit or explicit threat to the safety of the victim, and the victim must experience fear as a result of the intentional behaviour of the pursuer (Dennison and Thomson, 2005). Although the constitutionality of stalk­ ing laws continues to be argued in courts of appeal, particularly in the United States, it appears that this very old behaviour, which is now a new crime, is here to stay (Meloy, 1999). To those of us with an intense interest in the motivation and meaning of behaviour, stalking is a remarkably intriguing activity whose interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics easily subsume the legal debates: why, on earth, would someone want to pursue another who shows absolutely no interest in his or her attentions! The answer to this fundamental question, and other related queries, helps us to understand the state of the science and to propose directions for future research.