The number of stalking cases recognized by police reached 23,079 in 2017, an increase of 342 cases, or 1.5 percent, over the 2016 figure, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
The number is a record high since the antistalking law became effective in 2000.
The law was revised in January last year to expand the scope of acts subject to regulations to include repeatedly sending messages to victims via social media. The police took action on a total of 2,625 stalking cases last year.
According to the NPA, women accounted for 88.3 percent of all stalking victims. Of them, 35.5 percent were in their 20s, 24.9 percent in their 30s and 19 percent in their 40s while 10.1 percent were teenagers.
Men accounted for 82.7 percent of perpetrators. Of them about 60 percent were in their 20s to 40s.
By stalkers' relationship with victims, 44.8 percent, the largest group, were current or former boyfriends or girlfriends, 13.2 percent were acquaintances or friends and 11 percent were colleagues or those at the same workplace. Strangers accounted for 7.4 percent. The relationship between stalkers and victims was unknown in 7.8 percent of cases, such as those involving one-sidedly sending messages through social media.
Of the 2,625 cases in which the police took action, the violation of the antistalking law was specifically applied in a record 926 cases. Of them, 94 cases involved repeatedly sending messages via social media, which became subject to regulation following the revision of the law in January last year. The police also handled 53 cases in which perpetrators were hanging around the victims.
The police issued warnings to stalkers in 3,265 cases, down 297 from the previous year. Orders including those to cease stalking were issued in a record 662 cases, up 489 from a year earlier.
The police issued orders to stop stalking that were not preceded by warnings -- a measure that was introduced in June last year -- in 463 cases. Of those, emergency orders to cease stalking were issued in 231 cases as the police judged that stalking could pose a threat to victims.
In May last year, a man stabbed the mother of his former girlfriend at the mother's apartment in Taito Ward, Tokyo. The man took the mother hostage and the Metropolitan Police Department's special squad was mobilized.
Before the stabbing incident, the man had pressed his former girlfriend to come back to him and repeatedly committed stalking by telephoning her about 30 times in a week. The day before the incident, the man was given a warning from the police based on the antistalking law.
Meanwhile, the NPA is urging stalkers to receive treatment by medical specialists. From April to December last year, the NPA urged 522 stalkers to receive such treatment, but only 108, or about 20 percent of the total, did so. Receiving such treatment is not mandatory. Of the 108, 17 people completed the treatment while 74 are still under treatment. The remaining 17 people stopped receiving the treatment halfway.
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