One in six women and one in 19 men have experienced stalking at some point during their lifetime, said Sgt. Julia Taggart at the Ask an Officer campus safety event Thursday.
Winthrop University Police gave students information about campus resources when dealing with stalking or harassment and allowed students to ask questions pertaining to stalking, harassment and student-campus police relations.
Taggart said stalking laws can differ from state to state, but they all have a common foundation.
“While legal definitions of stalking vary from one jurisdiction to another, a good working definition of stalking is according to the conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear,” Taggart said.
Taggart said stalking is a “fixation” on another person and stalkers are unpredictable. There are three types of stalking: intimate or former intimate, acquaintance and stranger.
Intimate or former intimate stalking is usually between a couple that is divorced or has broken up. An acquaintance stalker is usually someone the victim knows, not romantically, like a coworker or classmate. Stranger stalking is someone who the victim does not know.
Anyone can be a stalker, but according to the Jane Doe voices for change, 87 percent of stalkers overall are men regardless of the victim’s gender, Taggart said.
About 6.6 million Americans are stalked each year; 55 percent of females and 48 percent of males reported stalking to the police.
Two myths about stalking are that it is harmless and ignoring the stalker will make them go away. Taggart said these are both dangerous myths and the more a victim resists, the more the stalker will continue to be fixated on the victim.
Taggart said students should report cases of stalking and harassment to campus police or the Office of Victims Assistance, or OVA.
Taggart is the victim advocate for campus police and she shares this role with the OVA’s new victim advocate, Itali Jackson.
In addition to reminding students to contact campus police, Taggart gave students some off-campus resources to go to for assistance including Safe Passage, Inc., the National Center for Victims of Crime, local law enforcement, York County Solicitor’s Office, and the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN.
Taggart reminded students of the campus police escort system available for students, faculty members and visitors on campus to use for safety purposes.
If a student is at the library at 2 a.m. and they need someone to escort them to their car or back to their dorm, campus police will “safely maneuver you from point A to point B,”
Taggart said.
Campus police escort services can send escorts during the day for health and counseling services if a student is too ill to walk to Crawford building.
However, some students voiced concern with the reliability of the escort service due to wait times.
Taggart said students who call for an escort may have to wait 15 to 20 minutes until an officer is available if officers are dealing with a crime or emergency.
“The dispatcher should be telling you, ‘it’s going to be about 15, 20 minute wait because I have this and this… They should also be verifying your phone number, telling you to stay put and that they’ll call you as soon as they have an officer available,” Taggart said.
Campus police Lt. Yearta said the dispatcher should also ask if the student is safe before continuing with the call.
“I do not have a fully staffed department right now,” Yearta said. Yearta said escort times may be delayed because the department’s few night shift officers have to lockdown all academic buildings which usually takes about three hours.
However, Yearta said based on call logs and recorded calls, the average wait time for an escort within the past three years is 10 minutes.
Some students feel that the campus police escort system is effective. Ariel Smith, junior social work major, said she has used the escort services a few times and has had positive experiences with the officers. Smith said she feels like Ask an Officer was “very open” and good opportunity for conversation between students and campus police.
“Personally, I’ve only had good experiences so I don’t have a lot negative to say besides what I’ve heard from other students,” Smith said.
Other students continue to feel weary about their safety.
Brianna Atkins, a sophomore social work major, said she felt like the event was informational for some, but the officers’ responses were “restricted.”
“I really don’t feel reassured at all. That’s just my opinion. I felt like the two people who did talk to us seemed kind of nonchalant and tried to make it seem like they cared, but in my opinion they didn’t,” Atkins said.
Atkins said she recently filed a suspicious person report after closing at work one night in the DiGiorgio, but she was never updated on what happened after the report was filed.
Atkins said campus police showed up after her manager escorted her to her dorm which made her feel like campus police did not care about her report.
“It may be steps taken, but I feel like it either might be postponed, or the steps might be short term and it may not be a long lasting effect,” Atkins said.
Atkins said she wants the officers to show that they care more by more communication with students, about incidents, so students can feel safe and have closure.
Yearta said the department is working to improve how they convey messages to the student body, improve response times and customer service.
“There is at no time that someone should be made to feel disrespected [or] that someone should be made to feel that we don’t care,” Yearta said.
Campus police is working to improve communication and trust between students. Yearta said because students may not know the information that officers investigate after reports are filed, there is a barrier between students and campus police.
“Our job is to do a better job of bridging the gap of communicating the back end of the story,” Yearta said.
Yearta and Taggart want students to call or email them to notify the department of any issues or complaints they have had with dispatchers or officers so those problems can be addressed and corrected.
“In their [students] fear of not wanting to come forward, they’re not giving us a chance to listen and see what we can or cannot do for them,” Taggart said.
Taggart and Yearta said they do not want students to feel as if they cannot come to campus police for help or safety.
“When you see something call us then… I would much rather y’all call us 10,000 times a day and 9,999 of those calls were absolutely nothing that we’re even going to put pen to paper on,” Yearta said. “But at least you feel better because we’re responding to your complaints. You are the community we patrol. You are the taxpayers.”
Students who have been in any traumatic situation should report all incidents to campus police but they are able to go to other resources for assistance.
The OVA can be used as a liaison between students and campus police. OVA counselor, Beverly Holbrook, said students can visit their office to cope with lingering fears and to find out more information about their reports.
Campus police also suggest downloading the LiveSafe app which allows students to call, text and report crimes to the police anonymously.
