LAW ENFORCEMENT:

Texting’s troubling side: Technology that’s used to abuse

Bill would make digital stalking a felony

Chris Morris

Friday, May 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.

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During court-mandated private therapy sessions, teenage victims of domestic violence sit across from social worker Lora Watkins with cell phones in their hands — still sending dozens of text messages to their abusers. It’s maddening, but Watkins, an adolescent domestic violence therapist for nearly a decade, is accustomed to having an unwelcome third participant in the room: the cell phone.

This is a new dimension of domestic abuse and stalking, where an abuser’s reach extends as far as cell phone towers and the Internet will allow. Text message harassment, online attacks through Facebook and e-mail monitoring by a jealous partner can escalate into a sort of electronic assault that’s inescapable (because our phones are now extensions of our arms) and hard to understand (sticks and stones will break my bones but text messages will never hurt me).

If the text messages become threatening, Watkins recommends that victims transcribe the messages onto paper and have the document notarized to be used as evidence or as justification for a restraining order.

The nonprofit Family Violence Prevention Fund has come up with a name for the new cruelty: “digital dating abuse.” In other circles it’s been dubbed “textual harassment.”

Today, the state Senate Judiciary Committee is to hear Assembly Bill 309, which would add “text messaging” to Nevada’s definition of stalking, making stalking with text messages a felony. If the bill becomes law — it passed unanimously in the Assembly last month — Nevada will become one of the few states with anti-stalking laws that specifically include text messaging. As of March, there were four others: Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Washington, according to the Associated Press.

In February the Advertising Council joined the Family Violence Prevention Fund to launch a national campaign warning children about digital dating violence. The campaign embraces the medium it addresses: The national public service announcements direct teens to the Web site thatsnotcool.com, where they are then encouraged to snap cell phone photos of “call out cards” — barbed messages designed to be sent as text or e-mail to the offending party. Some examples of the call out cards: “Congrats! With that last text message you’ve achieved stalker status,” and “Thank you for the thoughtful text every 10 seconds.”

One in three teens reported receiving 10 to 30 text messages an hour from a partner keeping tabs on them, according to a 2007 study, and one in four reported their partners called them names or harassed them through text messages and cell phones. In January a Justice Department report on stalking in the United States revealed more than a quarter of all victims are targeted with technology, including e-mail and text messaging.

It often starts under the guise of concern: A boyfriend wants to make sure his girlfriend is safe, so he gives her a phone, Watkins says. Eventually, the check-ins become constant: Where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? Soon, the victim — Watkins mainly sees this in teenage girls — is dedicated to appeasing the harasser by tapping out replies. Grades drop, friends are shut out and the victim becomes isolated.

“This is an insidious process,” Watkins said.

And a process that parents often don’t recognize. Millions of teenagers send billions of text messages every year, so distinguishing between what is and isn’t safe is hard for parents and teens alike, said Brian O’Connor of the Family Violence Prevention Fund. Though young adults recognize physical violence is wrong, they don’t always recognize digital harassment as a problem, O’Connor said. What sounds like a nightmare to an adult — hundreds of text messages — is normal to teens.

“They’re desensitized, and they think it isn’t serious because it happens all the time,” he said.

When the Prevention Fund put groups of teens together to interview them about the issue, they often wound up texting one another from across the room.

Only adults, those who haven’t always had the Internet and cell phones, separate their online selves from their actual selves, O’Connor said. For teenagers, “it’s just living. For them, they grew up with the Internet, it’s going to play a real critical role in their lives.” This is why the typical parental reaction — taking away the phone or prohibiting Internet access — isn’t considered a viable solution.

For starters, O’Connor said, “taking away the phone is like pushing water up a hill. Technology is coming to your kids. You will not win that battle.”

And parents don’t appreciate how harsh taking away a phone or computer can be. “You’ve just asked them to cut off their arms,” Watkins said.

Children also anticipate that parents will try to solve the problem by eliminating the phone, so they keep quiet about what is happening to them, further complicating the problem.

O’Connor and other advocates for victims say seminars on digital abuse should be built into school curricula, no different from kindergarten classes on inappropriate touching or junior high school drug deterrence programs. But these digital abuse lessons will become more complicated as people become more connected.

Metro’s domestic violence detectives say text messaging is becoming an increasingly prevalent problem, not just as a tool for abusers to monitor their victims but as an instigator of violence. Text messages intercepted by jealous partners frequently lead to trouble, Metro Police Lt. Christopher Carroll said. In some cases, detectives photograph text messages while building domestic violence cases.

When threats come in the form of text messages, the problem is proving who sent them. Cell phone companies don’t keep records of every message sent, so without contextual evidence in the text, it would be fruitless to submit the cell phone communications in court. Even if AB309 passes, this will prove a challenge for police and prosecutors. The bill’s primary sponsor, Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas, said she introduced the legislation after being contacted by the family of a murder victim who lived in her district.

Jana Adams was discovered by her teenage daughter on the floor of the family garage with a metal rod through her head in January 2008. The youngest of Adams’ five children, only a month old at the time, was crying unattended nearby. Adams’ onetime boyfriend, Jesse Lucio, pleaded guilty to killing her and is to be sentenced next week.

According to Adams’ relatives, Lucio called her cell phone incessantly. When he could not reach her, he called her children and other family members. Adams’ sister, Lisa Scovil, contacted Koivisto when she learned Nevada’s stalking laws, unlike those in her home state, Utah, don’t include text messaging. To Scovil, Nevada was out of date.

“I felt strongly about it since my sister was murdered by a stalker,” she said. “Utah’s bill was a good model and I wanted to put it out there for Jana’s sake.”

Lucio didn’t send text messages, but he did call Adams “all the time, any time, day or night,” Scovil said. And the cell phone was between them until the end — Adams made two phone calls just before she died, though the second one was wordless, her sister said, adding that Jana Adams’ phone has never been found.

Discussion: 6 comments so far…

By billsail

5/8/09 at 7:08 a.m.

Suggest removal

Sorry for the death but, there are already laws on the books for this type of harasssment. Why don't we just enforce the laws we have instead of creating a new law named after someone...
By Harley

5/8/09 at 7:08 a.m.

Suggest removal

NO to Assembly Bill 309.
By neiman1

5/8/09 at 7:34 a.m.

Suggest removal

How about letting a cell phone block calls and texts from a specific number??? We have the technology. Harassment over. No courtroom involvement.
By Harley

5/8/09 at 8:18 a.m.

Suggest removal

Speaking of text messaging, upon phone up-grade with Cingular/AT&T text messaging as well as internet services were automatically included due to advancements in the up-graded phone capabilities. The services were undesired and there were no charges for just possessing the services. However, if and when the services were used additional charges would incur.

Subsequent billing statements began including additional charges for text messages received even though the feature wasn't used.

What happened; AT&T was periodically sending text message advertisements of their services to their customers possessing the text message feature and billing customers for receiving their advertisements!

Imagine some slug at AT&T every couple of days generating income by simply sending out advertisements on the AT&T network of text message customers? That's what was happening and apparently there is no law prohibiting such unsolicited harassment and associated charges.

AT&T was immediately notified that their text messaging and internet services were undesired as they removed the charges while disabling the services.

Is your cell phone provider charging YOU for receiving their text message advertisements?

You may want to take a closer look at your billing statements.

On another cell phone awareness note:

According to PBS Frontline episode "Spying on the Home Front," YOUR AT&T cellular phone services are being monitored by Federal espionage agencies.

Welcome to the real world of modern communications technology and how it's being "tapped" to invade privacy and generate revenues from users.
By KillerB

5/8/09 at 9:41 a.m.

Suggest removal

"The nonprofit Family Violence Prevention Fund has come up with a name for the new cruelty: "digital dating abuse."

The FVPF has been known for quite awhile for creating problems where no real problems exist. What this article shows right at the beginning: they label as "abuse" what the "victims" would call "conversation." All those teenage "victims" in session to be convinced they were being abused and stalked were busily texting their "abusers."

Good points, Harley. I would only add the legistlature should, but of course won't, tread lightly here -- this is Free Speech and generally off limits to regulation, especially to criminalizing.
By TaushaR

5/22/09 at 4:06 a.m.

Suggest removal

To read a small article in a small newspaper and then have the nerve to put down the hard work that all of my mother's family and friends have done to get this bill passed is rediculous. If you had bothered to read AB309 you would have seen that the bill is to make all forms of stalking a felony on a 2nd offense.Right now stalking is only a misdameanor and the laws protect the stalker way more than they protect the victims. But I am sure you already read all of that right?! Before you go and judge someone who is in a stalking situation and think that it is really that easy to get away from someone stalking you, I know first hand it is NOT!! Don't you dare tell me that a protective order will help someone because a piece of paper that says you can't be near someone doesn't stop a sick and twisted person from hiding out and waiting to brutally beat and kill you like Jesse Lucio did to my mother. And that modern technology that everyone says will save you...the only thing it did was give me nightmares from when I received the last 2 calls that my mother made in her life, when her jaw was broken and she was trying to tell me that she needed help but couldn't speak. Maybe I should talk about the nightmares that the 15 year old girl, now 17, that found her mom bleeding to death on the cold garage floor has, or the nightmares the 11 and 9 year old have about the rest of their family being killed and leaving them all alone because one day they went to school with a mother and came home without one, or maybe even the brand new baby that will never even have a memory of her mother. That murderer was not a first time stocker either, he stalked every woman that he dated and used their worst fears against them to keep them quiet because there were not harsh enough laws to protect them from him.

I am also sure that you all know the statistics on stalking right?! That 75% of the women in the U.S. that are murdered, are murdered by someone who stalked them.Maybe if they go to prison for stalking then we wont have to do it later when they have finally gone over the edge and murdered the person they were stalking, and if we do that then we might actually save a life. I would be happy to get you the FULL information of the bill and let you see everything it covers on stalking. I would also like you to see the letters that we have sent to the assemblymen and senators of ALL the family and friends of my mothers that have been affected by her situation and have experiences of THEIR OWN with stockers.

Before you go making empty apologies and accusing people of trying to get laws made in their name, take a look at the cause they are passionatly fighting for and maybe you might have a different outlook on things.Maybe you will use your freedom of speech to help a cause instead of hurting it. We started this because stalking is a serious crime that isn't being taken seriously by our court system. By the way...WE got the law passed in Utah, they saw the seriousness!

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