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Factors Associated with Escalation and Problematic Approaches Toward Public Figures*
Abstract
Abstract: Detailed comparison of factors associated with abnormal approach to the prominent and with escalation from communication to approach has not hitherto been undertaken. This partially reflects the failure of individual studies to adopt compatible terminologies. This study involves a careful dissection of six public figure studies, three involving U.S. politicians, two Hollywood celebrities, and one the British Royal Family. Common findings were unearthed across six headings. Approachers were significantly more likely to exhibit serious mental illness, engage in multiple means of communication, involve multiple contacts/targets, and to incorporate into their communication requests for help. They were significantly less likely to use threatening or antagonistic language in their communications, except in those cases involving security breaches. These results emphasize the importance of integrating mental health findings and preventive measures into risk management. Approach should not be regarded as a single behavioral category and has multiple motivations. Future studies should adopt standard terminology, preferably taken from the general stalking research.
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“It also shares limitations with other studies using the same or similar data: outdated data, missing data, interrater reliability in coding of variables, and a bias in less information being collected on the cases that are low concern, as these are not progressed by FTAC (Clemmow et al., 2021;Meloy et al., 2010).”
From Unmet needs: analysing the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre’s fulfilment of the public health approach, and its value for violence prevention (2025) · cites this paper as Meloy et al., 2010
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“There is at least one more form of unmet need, which is an unknown in this dataset (Meloy et al., 2010): mentally ill individuals who have had contact with services, been engaged with and suitable for them, but where treatment has been ineffective or they have been non-responsive to treatment.”
From Unmet needs: analysing the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre’s fulfilment of the public health approach, and its value for violence prevention (2025) · cites this paper as Meloy et al., 2010
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Research works printed but not linked: 30
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Cited by
Seaward, A., Marchment, Z., Wilson, S., Elfituri, S., Farnham, F., Plumb, T., Rose, K., Taylor, A., Corner, E., & Gill, P. (2025) · Psychology, Crime & Law · doi:10.1080/1068316x.2025.2581795 · Cited by 1
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Metadata
- Authors
- Meloy, J. R., James, D. V., Mullen, P. E., Pathé, M. T., Farnham, F. R., Preston, L. F., & Darnley, B. J.
- Venue
- Journal of Forensic Sciences
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-10-06
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- s1
- ISSN
- 0022-1198
- 1556-4029
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 0
- Language
- en
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- Meloy, J. R., James, D. V., Mullen, P. E., Pathé, M. T., Farnham, F. R., Preston, L. F., & Darnley, B. J. (2011). Factors Associated with Escalation and Problematic Approaches Toward Public Figures*. Journal of Forensic Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2010.01574.x
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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