Stalking, Harassment, and Murder in the Workplace: Guidelines for Protection and Prevention

Schell and Lanteigne provide a clear, objective, responsible, and readable analysis of the facts of stalking crimes against people in the workplace — and a practical guide to protecting the organization against them. The authors have taken as their purpose the task of helping to reduce the potential for workplace and personal tragedies. They not only make people aware of the stalking cycle and the stages commonly found in stalking incidents, but they give ways to prevent the cycle from escalating into disaster. Their goal is to help organizations develop policies and strategies to identify and suppress stalking before it's too late. Their book is unique in several ways: it expands on other presentations of the topic; it goes into detail about how stalking victims act and react and why they deny that stalking is happening to them, and it provides clinical insights into the ways stalkers think and behave — and why. Schell and Lanteigne differentiate sexual harrassment incidents from stalking. Their theme: If there is a stalking problem, it needs to be identified and corrected early. They detail various interventions proposed by experts in forensic psychiatry, law enforcement and security, and human resource management. With numerous case histories of real-life stalking incidents and responses from victims and their organizations' management, the authors make clear what can go wrong with an inappropriate intervention, and what individuals, businesses, and organizations can do to turn a psychologically devastating and potentially life threatening situation around. Their red flag indicators help readers to understand that a stalking crime may be happening to them. The authors also give readers and their supervisors the resources they need to deal with it. The result is an important contribution to the literature on a growing, extremely dangerous crime in today's organizations, and an essential resource for executives and managers who are compelled to cope with it.