The unlawful stalking of a person

ENStalking is one of the most pressing issues today – not only in criminal law, but also in other disciplines such as criminology, psychology, psychiatry, and sociology. Unlawful stalking has been defined, from its earliest scientific analysis, as a type of behavior that usually manifests itself in a form of unwanted behavior by the perpetrator that harasses the victim (Čėsnienė and Čėsna 2006, p. 27), and as behavior that creates a sense of fear and danger. According to researchers, stalking is interference with another person’s psyche by repeated acts of intimidation, forcing the person to experience constant stress, fear, insecurity, and loss of control over the situation, leading to negative consequences that affect not only the person’s mental health but also their physical health, well-being and quality of life (Michailovič 2018, pp. 86, 89). However, it is extremely difficult to provide a clearly formulated and valid definition of stalking, as the term can be applied to a wide range of behaviors (Michailovič 2018, p. 86). It should be noted that there are also very graphic representations of stalking in the literature; these include the cat-and-mouse game, where the cat, chasing its victim, initially plays with it for a while, and the game is nothing more than the cat tormenting the victim until the mouse loses its life (MacFarlane 1997, p. 37). This description is intended to precisely convey the sense of terror, fear, insecurity, and loss of control that the person being stalked experiences. Thus, as can be seen, stalking requires a balanced and therefore coherent approach to this social concept and its legal assessment. [p. 87].