ONS estimated 2.9% of people aged 16+ experienced stalking in the latest self-completion data, year ending March 2025.
Statistics & Research
The pattern is already being measured.
Use data to steady perception. Statistics do not diagnose an individual, but they show that stalking, coercive control, emotional abuse, and repeat patterns are real public-safety issues.
ONS estimated 7.8% of people aged 16+ experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2025.
Police recorded this number of coercive control offences in England and Wales in year ending March 2025.
Source Trail
Primary data links
01Stalking is often repeated conduct, not one isolated message.
ONS separates stalking and harassment prevalence from headline crime figures because these experiences are collected through self-completion survey modules. The latest Crime in England and Wales bulletin keeps using year ending March 2025 self-completion estimates for stalking, domestic abuse, and sexual assault.
02Emotional abuse is not soft data; it is a measured abuse type.
In the ONS domestic abuse release for year ending March 2025, emotional abuse was the most prevalent abuse type measured in the last year. The useful public message is simple: psychological harm can be part of the abuse pattern even where there is no physical injury.
03People can repeat harmful behaviour while trying to stay deniable.
Repeated low-level contact, indirect pressure, plausible excuses, proxy involvement, and public/private inconsistency can keep conduct under the radar. The test is not whether each incident looks dramatic. The test is whether the behaviour repeats, escalates, causes fear, controls choices, or invades normal life.
Behaviour Research
Risk factors, not public diagnosis
01Stalking typologies are research categories, not casual labels.
Research commonly describes rejected, intimacy-seeking, incompetent, resentful, and predatory stalking motives. These categories can help a reader understand risk patterns, but public pages should still focus on observable behaviour and evidence.
02Police recorded crime is not the whole stalking picture.
GOV.UK's 2026 stalking factsheet records updated policy around stalking protections and repeats the warning that police recorded crime is not a good measure of stalking prevalence.
03Narcissism research can inform risk language, not public diagnosis.
Meta-analysis links narcissism with intimate partner violence perpetration, but the reported relationship is not a licence to diagnose. Keep the page anchored in conduct, evidence, impact, and support routes.
04Dark Triad traits are studied as manipulation-risk language.
Narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism are studied as trait clusters linked with manipulation and interpersonal harm. They are risk-language, not proof-language.
05Adverse childhood experiences can raise population risk without excusing harm.
ACE research supports trauma-informed prevention. Childhood adversity can increase risk in populations, but it does not excuse abuse or mean a person is destined to harm others.
06Cluster B language needs care on public pages.
Cluster B includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders. Public pages should discuss observable conduct, not diagnose mental health conditions.
07The Fraud Triangle can be a thinking model for deception.
Pressure, opportunity, and rationalisation can help explain why a person may justify deception. Use it as a thinking model, not as proof of motive.