Skip to main content

Stalking

2007(A) No. 1961

The accused was charged with the act of stalking a female customer at a shopping mall, taking photographs of her buttocks in trousers with his cellular phone with a built-in digital camera from a close distance.  The court held that this act constituted an obscene act making a victim feel embarrassed or insecure under the Hokkaido Prefecture Ordinance on Prevention of Violent Public Nuisance No. 34 of 1965, which criminalizes obscene behavior.

An Act to consolidate the Law Relating to Crimes and Criminal Offenders (Victoria)

The Crimes Act is the principal Victorian criminal legislation setting out a range of criminal offences and penalties.  In relation to gender justice, the Act prohibits sexual violence and rape, stalking, sexual assault, rape, abortion (as amended by the Abortion Law Reform Act 2008) and female genital mutilation.  The Act also prohibits attempts and conspiracies to commit these offenses, and sets forth applicable procedures and defenses.  The Act previously contained a defense of “defensive homicide,” which was intended to, among other things, assist women who killed an abus

Baudžiamasis Kodeksas (Criminal Code)

Under the Criminal Code, rape is defined quite narrowly as “sexual intercourse against a person’s will with the use or threat of physical violence present or deprivation of possibility of resistance.” There is also no mention of rape in marriage. To hold a person liable for rape, which is punished by imprisonment for up to seven years, the victim or their representative must file a complaint. However, in the case of rape (i) by a group of accomplices or (ii) of a minor or a young child, the term of imprisonment can be longer, and complaint filing is not needed.

Cavanaugh v. Cavanaugh

An man appealed his restraining order, which prevented him from contacting his ex-wife, arguing that the lower court did not properly establish a finding of domestic abuse despite his ex-wife’s testimony that he repeatedly used vulgar and threatening language towards her, at times placing her in fear of physical harm. The Rhode Island Supreme Court upheld the restraining order and underlying finding of domestic abuse, citing the definition of domestic abuse in Title 15, Chapter 15 of the General Laws of Rhode Island: “Among the acts specified in . . .

Code of Virginia: Arrest without a warrant authorized in cases of assault and battery against a family or household member and stalking and for violations of protective orders; procedure, etc. (Va. Code § 19.2-81.3)

This Virginia law allows officers to make an arrest without a warrant in certain cases of assault and battery, or stalking, against a family or household member. Instead of a warrant, the arrest must be based on probable cause, the officer’s personal observations, the officer’s investigation, or a reasonable complaint from a witness.

Code of Virginia: Civil Action for Stalking (Va. Code § 8.01-42.3)

Under Virginia law, a victim has a civil cause of action against an individual who engaged in stalking conduct prohibited under Code of Virginia § 18.2-60.3, regardless of whether the individual has been charged or convicted for the alleged violation, for the compensatory damages incurred by the victim due to the conduct plus the costs for bringing the action. A victim may also be awarded punitive damages in addition to compensatory damages.

Code of Virginia: Stalking; penalty (Va. Code § 18.2-60.3)

Virginia law prohibits that any person, except law enforcement officers acting in the capacity of the official duties, and registered private investigators acting in the course of their legitimate business, who on more than one occasion engages in conduct with the intent to place, or when that person knows or reasonably should know that the conduct places another person in reasonable fear of death, criminal sexual assault, or bodily injury to that other person or to that other person’s family or household member is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Criminal Code Act (Tasmania)

The Criminal Code Act 1924 prohibits forced and unauthorized abortions and assaults on pregnant women, sexual violence, stalking, domestic violence, and female genital mutilation. The termination of a pregnancy by a person other than a medical practitioner or the pregnant woman herself is a crime at any stage of the pregnancy.

Subscribe to Stalking