Legislation that would increase penalties for those convicted of stalking and protections for victims statewide is being pushed by five women lawmakers, three of which are from Bucks County.
Bucks state Reps. K.C. Tomlinson, Kristin Marcell and Shelby Labs announced the package of bills earlier this month.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men in the nation experience stalking at some point in their lives. The majority of stalking victims are physically threatened by their stalkers.
Tomlinson’s measure seeks to impose a mandatory minimum penalty of at least five years’ incarceration for any defendant convicted of a second or subsequent offense of stalking.
“Given the world we live in today with social media stalking is easier than ever, we need to find more ways to protect victims and send a clear message to predators that these crimes will not be tolerated,” she said.
Marcell wants judges to have the ability to ban stalkers from having social media access to their victims in from Protection from Abuse (PFA) cases. Usually this is a common order judges impose for stalkers serving their sentence, it is unclear whether they can do so under the PFA law. This measure would provide further clarity to protect victims and deny social media access for stalkers in PFA proceedings.
This legislation will provide critical protections for stalking victims by ensuring that those who seek to harm or intimidate through social media will no longer have that avenue available to them,” Marcell said. “By allowing judges to prohibit social media access in Protection from Abuse proceedings, we are giving victims a powerful tool to protect their safety and well-being, and sending a clear message that online stalking will not be tolerated.”
State Reps. Shelby Labs (R-Bucks), Abby Major (R-Armstrong/Westmoreland), and Natalie Mihalek (R-Allegheny/Washington) are co-sponsoring the package of measures./
Labs Labs is seeking to expand the scope of criminal liability under the states stalking statutes by amending the Crimes Code to provide that a person commits the offense of stalking when the person knowingly or recklessly places another person in reasonable fear of bodily injury.
Major proposed legislation would increase the grading of the offense of stalking from a misdemeanor to a felony when the victim is a minor and the defendant is an adult who is at least four years older than the minor victim.
Labs and Marcell have also jointly proposed a resolution that would recognize the month of January 2025 as “Stalking Awareness Month” in the Commonwealth.
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