A course of unwanted conduct directed at a specific person that causes alarm, distress or a reasonable fear for their safety, including repeated unwanted contact, threats, or intimidating behavior that falls short of the more sustained and targeted pattern required for stalking. Many jurisdictions codify it as a standalone offense distinct from stalking, assault and the online-specific offenses of cyberstalking and online harassment, often as a lower-level charge covering a single serious incident or a short pattern of conduct rather than the prolonged pattern stalking statutes typically require. The United Kingdom's Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is a widely cited example of a statute built specifically around this offense.
Facts
Classification CodeUnder New York law, harassment in the first degree is classified as a class B misdemeanor, the state's lowest grade of criminal offense; harassment in the employment-law sense is instead a civil claim, not a freestanding crime, brought under federal statutes such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. 1 Elements of OffenseNew York's harassment statute requires that a person intentionally and repeatedly harass another by following that person in or about a public place, or by engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts that place the person in reasonable fear of physical injury. 1 Jurisdiction VariationHarassment is treated very differently depending on legal context: in employment law it is a civil claim requiring conduct so severe or pervasive that it affects the terms and conditions of a victim's employment under federal statutes including Title VII, the ADEA and the ADA, while under ordinary state criminal law, such as New York's, it is instead a freestanding low-level misdemeanor offense. 1 Classification
Offense GradeMinor or Summary Offense 1 Connections
Associated With
Akers and Burgess's social learning model explains aggressive and deviant conduct as acquired through reinforcement, observation and modeling; harassment, a form of aggression, is one behavior the model has been extended to.
Source Wikipedia: Social Learning Theory
Has Offense Grade
Entity-backed identity for the offense-grade enum value this offense already carries, resolved to a crime concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The offense-grade fact itself stays on the offense unchanged.
Sources
1. Cornell LII Wex: Harassment
Main definition paragraph
Harassment refers to words or behavior that threatens, intimidates, or demeans a person.
Criminal classification, New York harassment in the first degree
Harassment in the first degree is a class B misdemeanor.
Elements of the New York harassment statute
when he or she intentionally and repeatedly harasses another person by following such person in or about a public place or places or by engaging in a course of conduct or by repeatedly committing acts which places such person in reasonable fear of physical injury.
Employment-law definition of harassment
harassment is defined as offensive, unwelcome conduct based on a victim's protected characteristic, that is so severe or pervasive that it affects the terms and conditions of the victim's employment.
View the SourceWikipedia: Social Learning Theory
Associated With: Social Learning Theory, Criminology sectionQuote, Associated With: Social Learning Theory, Criminology section
Social learning theory has been used to explain the emergence and maintenance of deviant behavior, especially aggression.
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