New Ohio anti-stalking law takes effect today

AKRON (AP) — A new Ohio law allows judges who issue protection orders against suspected stalkers to also have them monitored electronically.

The law, effective today, requires the offender to pay for the monitoring, to be conducted by a sheriff’s office or other law-enforcement agency.

Democratic state Sen. Tom Sawyer of Akron introduced the original bill based on the experience of a Stark County woman who was stalked and threatened for 10 years by a former high school classmate.

Sawyer said at a hearing last year the monitoring will make it easier to gather enough evidence to convict those who engage in menacing by stalking.