For anyone who has fallen victim to harassment or has witnessed it, you may want to know how long you have to file a police report. So, how long do you have to file a police report for harassment? To find out the answer to the question, keep reading.
In general, if you have witnessed or fallen victim of a crime, you have to file a report to the police as soon as possible. However, there is a time limitation established by law. This kind of thing is known as a statute of limitations. It is established to govern the amount of time you have to report a crime before it is essentially “forgiven” in the eyes of the law.
A statute of limitations is the one that sets the maximum amount of time for criminal charges to be filed before they can no longer be investigated by law. The statutes of limitations may be different depending on the states. Not only that, the crime may also vary. Usually, petty offenses such as vandalism, traffic accidents, or minor theft have a one-year statute. It means a witness or bystander has a time limit of one year to file a report about the crime. For misdemeanor crimes, the time limit is usually two-years. For felons, they have a five-year statute. As for the serious felony crimes such as rape, child abuse, and murder, they have no statute of limitations, which means the ones who witness these crimes can come forward and report it any point after it has happened. Then, what about harassment? How long is the statute of limitations for this crime? Is its time limitation the same as rape?
Apparently, states include harassment as a misdemeanor and felony. If harassment is counted as a misdemeanor, it means it has a two-year statute and if it is counted as a felony, it has a five-year statute.
Keep in mind that a statute of limitations is not created to buy you time necessarily. In order to give the authorities adequate time to conduct an investigation and the prosecutor time to prepare their case, it is better for you to file a report to the police as soon as possible.
Market Watch states that one of the biggest arguments for a statute of limitations is that corroborating evidence of the crime diminishes over the years. Everyone who experienced or witnessed that dark thing will slowly forget details.
If you are a victim of harassment and the harassment is done by someone that is close to you, you may want to protect that person. If you are the witness of harassment, you may be afraid that the person that you are going to report to the police will hold the grudge for reporting their action to the police. However, it is worth noting that the more time passes, the harder it becomes to investigate the crime as the evidence may become contaminated or you, as the victim or the witness, may forget what happened that time.
Even though you may not want to file a report to the police for harassment as either a victim or a witness, you may still be asked to report incidents within a few days if you live in a state with such a rule, because the only valid evidence in these cases disappears pretty quickly so that the police will have no idea about what happened and what to do if you do not inform them about it. Make sure to check reporting laws in your state to find out if these requirements apply to you as well.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
