Serial stalking: Looking for love in all the wrong places?

This chapter focuses on a number of features of serial stalking. The term stalking has come to describe persistent attempts to impose oneself on another using various forms of communication or contact. Behaviors associated with stalking include the sending of unsolicited gifts, the ordering or canceling of services on the victim's behalf, threats, loitering near, following, surveilling, and in some cases, assault or homicide. It is found that more than one-third of the victims claimed that their stalker had also targeted at least one other person. University students have also been widely studied as a population to determine their victimization from stalkers. The findings suggest that stalking among this college population is higher than that indicated by other community samples. It is observed that profiling may be suited to the investigation of many stalking scenarios. It is suggested that repeat victimization from one stalker poses a significant obstacle to law enforcement charged with the investigation of such offenses.