Although the popular perception is that young people stalk someone because they were rejected in love, this scenario accounted for only two percent of the cases in the study done at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Dr. Rosemary Purcell studied 299 restraining orders that had been posted against young people, and found that the majority of stalkers were bullying their victims. More than 35 percent of the stalkers were females, and 75 percent of the victims had been threatened.
Juvenile stalking is characterized by direct, intense, overt threatening," Dr. Purcell wrote, adding that the behavior incorporates "violent forms of pursuit all too often."
Bullying has been associated with a variety of social, emotional, and developmental disorders, and can be damaging both to victims and perpetrators.
Posted By: Aspen/CRC