I ran a large homeless shelter outside of Chicago.
Several years ago, a delusional resident stalked one of our staff members.
In the end, we had to work with the police to get the man sent to prison.
It was a long and terrifying ordeal for the staff member.
It was one of the hardest (and scariest) situations I had to face in nearly two decades of running a shelter.
Schizophrenia and Stalking
Fortunately, there is a lot of research around schizophrenia and stalking.
Here are the basics:
• The OVERWHELMING majority of individuals with schizophrenia do not engage in stalking, harassment or violence. I cannot stress this point enough.
I couldn’t find a statistic in the literature, but my back-of-a-napkin math is that 1% of 1% of people with schizophrenia will stalk.
• Most stalkers do NOT have psychosis (the underlying symptoms of schizophrenia; e.g delusions and hallucinations). One study estimated that 70% of stalkers do not.
Looking at stalkers who DO have psychosis (compared to those who DO NOT), stalkers with psychosis are:
• Less likely to be violent
• More likely to stalk acquaintances or strangers (versus an ex-lover)
• More likely to try to visit the victim’s home
• More likely to stalk for a long time
Here are my takeaways from the research:
1) Most people with schizophrenia are not dangerous. Therefore, you should not automatically be afraid of a person experiencing hallucinations/delusions.
2) While the risk of violence is relatively low, the risk is relatively high of a VERY long and terrifying ordeal for the staff member.
What this means for you
Here is my recommendation if someone does develop a romantic delusion about you or one of your staff members:
• Immediately ban the person from your organization.
• If they show back up at your organization, get police involved immediately. Press charges. Get an order of protection. Use the full weight of the law to stop it as quickly as possible.
Have a fantastic week!
Peace,
Ryan
