Notable claimants
 |
- James Tilly Matthews (1770–1815), English businessman [17]
- Francis E. Dec (1926–1996), American lawyer [18]
- Gloria Naylor (1950–2016), American novelist [19]
- Isaac Brock (1975–present), American musician [20]
Gang stalking or group-stalking is a set of persecutory beliefs in which those affected believe they are being followed, stalked, and harassed by a large number of people. [1] The term is associated with the "targeted individual" ("T.I.") virtual community formed by like-minded individuals who claim their lives are disrupted from being stalked by organized groups intent on causing them harm. [2] [3]
The concept of stalking arose in the 1980s following increased legal equity for women and prosecution of domestic violence. Generally, stalking has a single perpetrator, who may sometimes recruit others to act vicariously on their behalf, usually unwittingly. Beginning in the early 2000s, the term gang stalking became popularized to describe a different experience of repeated harassment which instead comes from multiple people who organize around a shared purpose, with no one person solely responsible. [4]
A 2016 article in The New York Times estimated that more than 10,000 people were participating in online communities "organized around the conviction that its members are victims of a sprawling conspiracy to harass thousands of everyday Americans with mind-control weapons and armies of so-called gang stalkers". [2] The article identified a 2015 paper by Sheridan and James entitled "Complaints of group stalking ('gang stalking'): an exploratory study of their nature and impact on complainants" as the only scientific study of the topic at the time. [5] [2]
Hundreds of these communities exist online. [6] News reports have described how groups of Internet users have cooperated to exchange detailed conspiracy theories involving gang stalking. [2] Kershaw & Weinberger say, "Web sites that amplify reports of mind control and group stalking" are "an extreme community that may encourage delusional thinking" and represent "a dark side of social networking. They may reinforce the troubled thinking of the mentally ill and impede treatment." [7] [8] A 2020 study established a framework to classify and examine the phenomenon of individuals with the subjective experience of being gang stalked. The study confirmed the subsequent "serious" sequelae of their experience and recommended further research. [4]
Those who believe they are victims report that they believe the motivation for the gang stalking is to disrupt every part of their lives. [2] The activities involved are described as including electronic harassment, the use of "psychotronic weapons", directed-energy weapons, cyberstalking, hypnotic suggestion transmitted through remotely-accessed electronic devices, and other alleged mind control techniques. These have been reported by external observers as being examples of belief systems as opposed to reports of objective phenomena. [9] Among the community of targeted individuals, gang stalking is described as a shared experience where the gang stalkers all coordinate to harass individuals, and the individuals share their victim experiences with each other. [10] [11] [12]
A study from Australia and the United Kingdom by Lorraine Sheridan and David James [13] compared 128 self-defined victims of 'gang stalking' with a randomly selected group of 128 self-declared victims of stalking by an individual. All 128 'victims' of gang stalking were judged to be delusional, compared with only 5 victims of individual stalking. There were highly significant differences between the two samples on depressive symptoms, post-traumatic symptomatology and adverse impact on social and occupational function, with the self-declared victims of gang stalking being more severely affected. The authors concluded that "group stalking appears to be delusional in basis, but complainants suffer marked psychological and practical sequelae. This is important in the assessment of risk in stalking cases, early referral to psychiatric services and allocation of police resources." [13]
While a great majority of those who claim to be targeted individuals do not pose danger to others, [14] one report found that some have acted out with violence, sometimes extreme. [15] In 2022, a reported believer in gang stalking was accused of killing four people in Ohio; he uploaded a video before the shooting in which he said that he wanted to "help other targeted individuals", [14] and that he will conduct "the first counterattack against mind control in history". [16] A manifesto was found on his computer, in which he wrote that his neighbors are mind-controlling terrorists. [16]
|
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame.
A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other misleading effects of perception, as individuals with those beliefs are able to change or readjust their beliefs upon reviewing the evidence. However:
Erotomania, also known as de Clérambault's syndrome, is a relatively uncommon paranoid condition that is characterized by an individual's delusions of another person being infatuated with them. It is listed in the DSM-5 as a subtype of a delusional disorder. Commonly, the onset of erotomania is sudden, and the course is chronic.
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence that includes child sexual abuse, groping, rape, drug facilitated sexual assault, and the torture of the person in a sexual manner.
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment can be physical and/or a demand or request for sexual favors, making sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature, verbal. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault. Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions. Harassers or victims can be of any gender.
Delusional disorder, traditionally synonymous with paranoia, is a mental illness in which a person has delusions, but with no accompanying prominent hallucinations, thought disorder, mood disorder, or significant flattening of affect. Delusions are a specific symptom of psychosis. Delusions can be bizarre or non-bizarre in content; non-bizarre delusions are fixed false beliefs that involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being harmed or poisoned. Apart from their delusion or delusions, people with delusional disorder may continue to socialize and function in a normal manner and their behavior does not necessarily seem odd. However, the preoccupation with delusional ideas can be disruptive to their overall lives.
Pathological jealousy, also known as morbid jealousy, Othello syndrome, or delusional jealousy, is a psychological disorder in which a person is preoccupied with the thought that their spouse or sexual partner is being unfaithful without having any real proof, along with socially unacceptable or abnormal behaviour related to these thoughts. The most common cited forms of psychopathology in morbid jealousy are delusions and obsessions. It is considered a subtype of delusional disorder.
Mobbing, as a sociological term, refers either to bullying in any context, or specifically to that within the workplace, especially when perpetrated by a group rather than an individual. The term originated as a loanword from English which did not reflect the original English meaning, but has been loaned back into English by some sociologists to refer specifically to workplace harassment. Outside of this narrow academic sense, "mobbing" is a false friend, and the term "bullying" is usually preferred.
Street harassment is a form of harassment, primarily sexual harassment that consists of unwanted sexualised comments, provocative gestures, honking, wolf-whistlings, indecent exposures, stalking, persistent sexual advances, and touching by strangers, in public areas such as streets, shopping malls and public transportation. Besides actions or comments that contain a sexual connotation, it often includes homophobic and transphobic slurs, and hateful comments referencing race, religion, class, ethnicity and disability. The practice is rooted in power and control and is often a reflection of societal discrimination, and has been argued to sometimes result from a lack of opportunities for expression of interest or affection.
Internet safety, also known as online safety, cyber safety and electronic safety (e-safety), refers to the policies, practices and processes that reduce the harms to people that are enabled by the (mis)use of information technology.
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization. It may include false accusations, defamation, slander and libel. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, doxing, or blackmail. These unwanted behaviors are perpetrated online and cause intrusion into an individual's digital life as well as negatively impact a victim's mental and emotional well-being, as well as their sense of safety and security online.
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral reasonableness. In the legal sense, these are behaviors that appear to be disturbing, upsetting or threatening. Traditional forms evolve from discriminatory grounds, and have an effect of nullifying a person's rights or impairing a person from benefiting from their rights. When these behaviors become repetitive, it is defined as bullying. The continuity or repetitiveness and the aspect of distressing, alarming or threatening may distinguish it from insult.
Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance or contact by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The term stalking is used with some differing definitions in psychiatry and psychology, as well as in some legal jurisdictions as a term for a criminal offense.
A persecutory delusion is a type of delusional condition in which the affected person believes that harm is going to occur to oneself by a persecutor, despite a clear lack of evidence. The person may believe that they are being targeted by an individual or a group of people. Persecution delusions are very diverse in terms of content and vary from the possible, although improbable, to the completely bizarre. The delusion can be found in various disorders, being more usual in psychotic disorders.
Electronic harassment, electromagnetic torture, or psychotronic torture are terms used by individuals holding the delusional belief that malicious actors make use of electromagnetic radiation, radar, and surveillance techniques to transmit sounds and thoughts into people's heads, affect people's bodies, and harass people. Individuals who claim to experience this call themselves "targeted individuals" (TIs). Some claim they are victims of gang stalking and many have created or joined support and advocacy groups.
Disability hate crime is a form of hate crime involving the use of violence against people with disabilities. This is not only violence in a physical sense, but also includes other hostile acts, such as the repeated blocking of disabled access and verbal abuse. These hate crimes are associated with prejudice against a disability, or a denial of equal rights for disabled people. It is viewed politically as an extreme form of ableism, or disablism. This phenomenon can take many forms, from verbal abuse and intimidatory behaviour to vandalism, assault, or even murder. Although data are limited studies appear to show that verbal abuse and harassment are the most common. Disability hate crimes may take the form of one-off incidents, or may represent systematic abuse which continues over periods of weeks, months, or even years. Disabled parking places, wheelchair access areas and other facilities are frequently a locus for disability hate. Instead of seeing access areas as essential for equity, they are seen instead as 'special treatment', unjustifiable by status, and so a 'reason' for acting aggressively. Denial of access thus demonstrates a prejudice against equal rights for disabled people; such actions risk actual bodily harm as well as limiting personal freedom.
The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) is a UK police/mental health unit, whose function is to manage the risk to public figures from stalkers and individuals who are fixated on high profile public figures or prominent protected sites. It was formed in 2006 in acknowledgement that perpetrators of attacks and other unwanted incidents overwhelmingly suffered from psychosis, and could often be identified in advance of any incidents from precursor behavioural signs. Preventive treatment could then be applied, for the protection of the relevant public figures as well as the families and neighbours of the sufferer.
Cyberstalking and cyberbullying are relatively new phenomena, but that does not mean that crimes committed through the network are not punishable under legislation drafted for that purpose. Although there are often existing laws that prohibit stalking or harassment in a general sense, legislators sometimes believe that such laws are inadequate or do not go far enough, and thus bring forward new legislation to address this perceived shortcoming. In the United States, for example, nearly every state has laws that address cyberstalking, cyberbullying, or both.
Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers and adolescents, due to the communication technology advancements and young people's increased use of such technologies. Cyberbullying is when someone, typically a teenager, bullies or harasses others on the internet and other digital spaces, particularly on social media sites.
Targeted individual may refer to: