Teens, Technology, and Cyberstalking: The Domestic Violence Wave of the Future?

I. INTRODUCTIONThe American criminal justice system is on the cusp of a potential domestic violence crisis. The United States has made progress in combating domestic violence in the last thirty years, primarily by recognizing that domestic violence is a crime and one that should be prosecuted. This progress is at risk of being undennined by the intersection of two recent developments: first, teenagers normalizing unhealthy relationship patterns through pervasive use of technology and second, law enforcement's inability to adequately respond to cyberstalking. The combination of these two trends suggests that American society is producing a whole new generation of domestic violence batterers.Several recent studies have found that nearly all teenagers are using technology - primarily cell phones and text messaging - and using it to a staggering degree. More importantly, teenagers are incorporating technology into the formation of their sexual identities and the patterns of their intimate relationships.2 The incorporation of this pervasive technology use into normal teenage development is occurring largely without adult supervision or modeling.3 Teenagers' use of technology has reduced or changed their expectations of privacy in their intimate relationships, normalizing a "boundarylessness" which may make them more accepting of - and more at risk from - abusive behaviors by their intimate partners. Given the well-documented prevalence of domestic violence in teenage relationships,4 the damaging impact of violence during these formative relationships,5 and the effectiveness of technology as a tool for domestic violence,6 America is facing a crisis in its efforts to combat domestic violence. Our emerging adult population is normalizing unhealthy relationship patterns while embracing technology, which has become an effective tool for establishing power and control imbalances in those relationships.The criminal justice system has yet to develop an effective response to cyberstalking. Technology provides increasingly sophisticated ways for batterers to stalk their intimate partners and avoid detection, apprehension, and prosecution. The centrality of stalking and cyberstalking to domestic violence is well-established. Twenty-six percent of stalking victims report being stalked through the use of some form of technology, such as e-mail, instant messaging (LM), or monitoring through global positioning systems (GPS), Spyware, or digital surveillance.7 Although stalking and cyberstalking are chronically under-reported, the connection between stalking and violence is clear: 80% of all stalking of intimate partners is coupled with physical violence against the victims8 and 76% of all women killed by their intimate partners had also been stalked by that partner.9 Efforts to prosecute digital domestic violence have been mainly ineffective, largely due to the continuing development of technology, the difficulty of investigation, and the lack of adequate resources.10The American criminal justice system, therefore, is facing a future domestic violence crisis. Unfortunately, authorities - both parents and law enforcement - tend to minimize the seriousness of violence within adolescent relationships and to minimize the seriousness of stalking. In addition, given the prevalence and embrace of technology by teenagers, criminalizing "normal" teenage behavior seems counter-productive. While an effective criminal justice system response to this problem has yet to be developed, the first step will be for parents and law enforcement to recognize the risk and take it seriously. The second step will be to "renorm" unhealthy teenage relationship norms. It is possible that the very embrace of technology might hold a solution. With guidance, the power of social networking may provide an effective counter to the isolation and imbalance of the domestic violence relationship. The combination of these steps might help avert this domestic violence crisis. …