Cyberstalking 2005 Statistical Analysis
It seems that stalkers will remain stalkers regardless of what medium they pursue their victims in. Since the introduction of the web to the public in the early 90`s, online abuse has been a major issue, and one that is constantly being monitored. Working to Halt Online Abuse, and organization, which as its name clearly states works to rid the world of this problem, has recently released their 2005 Cyberstalking statistics and the cumulative statistics from 2000-2005. In 2000, responding to law enforcement requests, Working to Halt Online Abuse began gathering demographic information from victims and plan to continue to document and track meaningful statistics in the future.
They are the only online organization to provide the most up-to-date cyberstalking statistics. ?We?ve found that harassers tend to be white collar, don?t have a criminal records, are not Internet experts or hackers, and are just like you and me,? says Working to Halt Online Abuse President, Jayne Hitchcock. ?They can be teachers, lawyers, businesspeople, students, doctors, the kid who bags your groceries ? online harassers and stalkers are not who you may think they are.? Statistics represent cases where the victims filled out the questionnaire as completely as possible, but the figures do not portray the total number of cases Working to Halt Online Abuse handles each year.
?On average, we can see up to 50 cases a week. We don?t see cyberstalking going away. In fact, it is increasing every day, mainly due to the fact that more people go online for the first time every day. Currently there are over one billion people online worldwide ? if only one percent become victims, that?s ten million people!? The trust Working to Halt Online Abuse receives from victims they have helped enables the group to develop reliable cyberstalking demographic numbers. However, as the statistics are generated from information supplied by the victims, verification is not always possible.
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