WHAT IS CRIMINAL HARASSMENT?

Criminal harassment, more commonly known as stalking, can be defined as harassing behaviour including repeatedly following, communicating with or watching over one’s dwelling home. This sort of behaviour is against the law.

It is not a sign of LOVE; it is about POWER and ABUSE.

Canadian Senator Donald Oliver describes stalking as “a horrific crime that is treated far too lightly by the police, prosecutors, lawyers and judges. Stalking is predatory in nature and plunges the victim into a world of fear, intimidation and terror. We must protect the victim and society. A stalker’s efforts to control and intimidate often escalate into violence.”

8 Common Types of CRIMINAL Harassment

However, criminal harassment doesn’t just take place in our personal lives, it can also take place in our professional lives too. Businesses and employees can be criminally harassed as well by current/past client/employees. Clients or employees have to work within the law and legal system to resolve any outstanding issues they may have with your company or another employee.

If they do not, they are criminally harassing a business/employee especially if employee/company have already spoken to the opposing client/employee about their behaviour. Also, if the past or current client/employee is contacting a company/employee against the will of the company/employee this behaviour also constitutes criminal harassment.

Physical Harassment
Personal Harassment
Discriminatory Harassment
Psychological Harassment

Cyberstalking
Sexual Harassment
3rd Party Harassment
Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying and cyberstalking are TWO major forms of criminal harassment that seem to be rising in the era of social media.

Below is the SCALE OF CYBERBULLYING SEVERITY along with examples to help identify how someone can be affected by these forms of harassment.

The Scale of CYBERBULLYING Severity

LOW: Private Harassment - i.e. unsolicited text/email messages or unwanted phone calls.

MODERATE: Public Bullying - i.e. name calling on/off online, slander, physical stalking, violent or jarring behaviour.

ELEVATED: Smear Campaign - i.e. defamation in a public forum such as social media or slander in a physical setting.

HIGH: Cyberstalking is the repeated use of electronic communications to harass, intimidate or frighten someone. i.e. sending threatening or unsolicited text/emails; continuing to be stalked online after you have blocked the stalker from your social media accounts.

SEVERE: Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political or ideological gains through threat or intimidation.

our foundation SUPPORTS

OUTSIDE OF THE SHADOWS

— a project on criminal harassment in Canada by Julie S. Lalonde

Julie S. Lalonde was stalked for over a decade. Although, she was an award winning women’s rights advocate, it wasn’t safe for her to tell her story until her abuser died. She created this project to support criminal harassment overall but the areas that commonly are overlooked such as stalking.

The Janét Aizenstros Foundation decided to support Julie’s project to raise awareness in all areas of criminal harassment.