Survey Results: Stalking
The prevalence of stalking remained approximately the same across groups from 2015 to 2021.
2015 | 2021 | |||||
Stalking | N | Freq | % | N | Freq | % |
Undergraduate Women | 5,519 | 563 | 10% | 4,232 | 429 | 10% |
Undergraduate Men | 4,821 | 151 | 3% | 3,393 | 109 | 3% |
Graduate Women | 1,168 | 95 | 8% | 1,506 | 68 | 5% |
Graduate Men | 1,428 | 27 | 2% | 1,536 | 22 | 1% |
For all groups in both years, the most common stalking behavior was “Sent you unwanted emails, instant messages/texts, or messages through social media.”
The prevalence of the behavior “Tried to communicate with you in other ways that you did not want” increased for all groups from 2015 to 2021; however, this increase may be due to an artifact of survey randomization; items were presented in a random order in 2021 but not 2015, and so this behavior may have appeared earlier in the list and been chosen more often in 2021 solely for that reason.
The prevalence of all behaviors for all groups is presented below. Results are only displayed if there are at least 10 participants who reported a behavior. Fifty percent of graduate men reported that they had received “unwanted emails, instant messages/texts, or messages through social media”; the number of graduate men who experienced other specific types of stalking behaviors is too small (n < 10) to display.
Undergraduate Women | 2015 | 2021 |
Sent you unwanted emails, instant messages/texts, or messages through social media | 51% | 48% |
Tried to communicate with you in other ways that you did not want | 24% | 43% |
Left unwanted messages after you told them to stop (including handwritten notes, voice messages, social media messages or electronic messages) | 30% | 37% |
Showed up at places where you were, even though that person had no business being there | 34% | 31% |
Contacted other people to get information about you or to find you | 23% | 31% |
Waited for you at places, such as your home, workplace or school when you didn’t want them to be there | 33% | 29% |
Made unwanted phone calls to you (including hang-up calls) | 27% | 24% |
Watched or followed you from a distance, or spied on you with a listening device, camera, or GPS | 22% | 16% |
Sent you unwanted gifts or other items | 11% | 14% |
Entered your home or car and did things to let you know they had been there | 3% | 8% |
Vandalized your property or destroyed something you loved | 5% | 7% |
Left you strange or potentially threatening items | 5% | 6% |
Undergraduate Men | 2015 | 2021 |
Sent you unwanted emails, instant messages/texts, or messages through social media | 37% | 34% |
Tried to communicate with you in other ways that you did not want | 25% | 33% |
Showed up at places where you were, even though that person had no business being there | 21% | 28% |
Contacted other people to get information about you or to find you | 18% | 28% |
Left unwanted messages after you told them to stop (including handwritten notes, voice messages, social media messages or electronic messages) | 21% | 23% |
Waited for you at places, such as your home, workplace or school when you didn’t want them to be there | 26% | 20% |
Made unwanted phone calls to you (including hang-up calls) | 21% | 19% |
Watched or followed you from a distance, or spied on you with a listening device, camera, or GPS | 17% | 19% |
Vandalized your property or destroyed something you loved | 10% | 13% |
Entered your home or car and did things to let you know they had been there | 9% | 12% |
Graduate Women | 2015 | 2021 |
Sent you unwanted emails, instant messages/texts, or messages through social media | 55% | 68% |
Tried to communicate with you in other ways that you did not want | 31% | 41% |
Contacted other people to get information about you or to find you | 23% | 28% |
Left unwanted messages after you told them to stop (including handwritten notes, voice messages, social media messages or electronic messages) | 35% | 25% |
Waited for you at places, such as your home, workplace or school when you didn’t want them to be there | 32% | 21% |
Showed up at places where you were, even though that person had no business being there | 22% | 19% |
Made unwanted phone calls to you (including hang-up calls) | 25% | 15% |
Watched or followed you from a distance, or spied on you with a listening device, camera, or GPS | 21% | 7% |
For undergraduates, most students reported that the stalking perpetrator(s) were affiliated with the university in both survey administrations: 64% of women in both years; 59% of men in 2015 and 52% of men in 2021.
For graduate women, most (53%) indicated that their stalking perpetrator was affiliated with the university in 2015, but equal proportions (46%) indicated that the perpetrator was and was not affiliated with CU in 2021. CU-affiliated perpetrators were most common among graduate men in both years (60% in 2015, 45% in 2021).
As seen in other categories of sexual misconduct, the proportion of students indicating that they prefer not to answer if the stalker was affiliated with the university increased from 2015 to 2021, perhaps reflecting increased concerns about the privacy of personal information.