Do you ever feel like somebody is watching you?

A resolution passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate establishing this month as National Stalking Awareness Month, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime.

The Illinois Statute for Stalking defines a stalker as someone who “knowingly and without lawful justification, on at least two separate occasions, follows another person or places that person under surveillance.”

It goes on to say that a person is guilty of stalking if they “transmit a threat of immediate or future bodily harm, sexual assault, confinement or restraint…places that person [or their family member(s)] in reasonable apprehension of immediate or future bodily harm, sexual assault, confinement or restraint.”

According to the statute, stalking is a Class 4 felony and a second or subsequent conviction for stalking is a Class 3 felony.

Todd Henert, lieutenant and director of police operations at NIU’s Department of Public Safety, said punishments for a Class 3 felony include two to five years in jail and a fine no greater than $25,000 or the amount specified in the offense, whichever is greater. A Class 4 felony similarly includes one to three years in jail and a fine not to exceed $25,000 or otherwise specified in the offense, whichever is greater.

“As a society, we romanticize stalking behavior as desirable,” said associate sociology professors Kirk Miller and Kristen Myers in an e-mail interview. “Cultural narratives of courtship can be seen to encourage stalking behaviors.

For example, women are expected to ‘play’ hard to get while men are expected to be persistent in their pursuit of women.”

This provides justification and rationalization for people engaged in stalking behavior to conceive these behaviors as normal, Miller and Myers said. It also discourages victims from coming forward because society minimizes stalking behaviors as an outcome of normal courtship or an “offense” that is an inconvenience to the victim rather than a crime.

Miller and Myers said this cultural attitude also affects our responses to stalking, especially in the criminal justice system.

“The failure of the criminal justice system to treat stalking as serious results from police, prosecutors, justices and jurors all being less likely to treat allegations of stalking seriously (compared to other types of crimes),” Miller and Myers said.

This can be seen at NIU as well in the example of the University Judicial System that treated one case of stalking, which included clear evidence of stalking by the accused, “too casually,” they said.

UJS called this “normal behavior among students at NIU,” and while the accused was found guilty of stalking, no punishment was given, they said.

“There have been a few reports of stalking in the past at NIU, but we have had no cases of stalking reported to the NIU Police in the past three years,” Henert said. “This doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening; it just means that it’s not being reported to us.”