My problem with that perspective is that the law is clear on the subject: It is a criminal matter, according to the cyberstalking statutes across the country. I

My problem with that perspective is that the law is clear on the subject: It is a criminal matter, according to the cyberstalking statutes across the country. If police don't like the law, they probably shouldn't have chosen a career of enforcing the law. (Certainly there are unjust laws, and I would hope officers would choose to exhibit some sort of leniency or looking the other way in minor cases of those sorts...but, in this case the response seems to be one of simply not believing the victim is worthy of their time and attention, despite the fact that the legislature of their state instructed them to consider protecting those victims a part of their job.) Pursuing a civil case requires money and time that many people don't have to spare. There are very few pro-bono cyberstalking attorneys out there, and unless and until it becomes common for their to be large payouts for victims (and their attorneys) there's unlikely to be an industry built up around it (as in the case of workman's comp, personal injury, medical malpractice, and class actions over corporate malfeasance). And, I don't know that we want to look to those industries for the preferred practices for preventing harm to young women and girls who are overwhelmingly the victims in these cases. I'm not saying the criminal justice system, or police, are the right way to handle it, either, though probably not for the same reason as some folks here have expressed. I think police have a history of further inflicting harm on rape victims, for example, and I don't now if I want that kind of harm to also be inflicted on girls and women who are victims of cyberstalking. It sounds like the experience of the author in interacting with police was similarly demeaning and dismissive to what some rape victims report about their experience going to the police, so I guess that's just where we're at in these kinds of crimes. In short, I don't know what the right answer is, and I don't like police or the criminal justice system, but I'd rather they err on the side of protecting victims, when they are deciding what cases to pursue and how to allocate resources. They had a victim in their office, and they opted to snicker at her, and tell her to get lost.