Alabama Harassment Laws: Penalties, Stalking, and Defenses

Alabama harassment laws sit in Section 13A-11-8 of the Alabama Code, which makes both harassment and harassing communications Class C misdemeanors punishable by up to three months in jail and a fine of up to $500.¹²³ Those baseline numbers are only the starting point. The same behavior can become domestic violence, stalking, or a federal offense depending on who the target is and whether the conduct repeats.

What the Statute Actually Prohibits

Alabama’s harassment offense is built around intent. You commit it only when you act with the specific purpose of harassing, annoying, or alarming another person. Accidental or incidental contact does not qualify no matter how the other person felt about it, and prosecutors have to prove that intent beyond a reasonable doubt.¹

With intent established, the statute reaches three kinds of conduct:

Unwanted physical contact such as touching, shoving, or kicking directed at the person.
Obscene or abusive language, or obscene gestures, directed at the person.
A verbal or nonverbal threat that the accused intends to carry out, where a reasonable person in the target’s position would fear for their safety.

The threat provision has two requirements working together. The person making the threat has to intend to carry it out, and a reasonable person has to feel genuine fear. A vague, offhand remark no one would take seriously likely fails that standard. A specific, credible threat made face-to-face almost always meets it.¹

Harassing Communications

Harassing communications is a separate offense in the same statute, carrying the same Class C misdemeanor classification. It covers remote contact rather than in-person encounters, and it can apply even when nothing threatening or physical takes place.¹

With intent to harass or alarm, a person commits the offense by:

Contacting someone by phone, mail, text, email, or any other written or electronic method in a way likely to harass or alarm them.
Making a phone call with no legitimate reason to communicate, whether or not the other person picks up.
Using lewd or obscene language toward someone during a telephone call.

The statute has one explicit safe harbor: legitimate business communications cannot be prosecuted under this section. A collections agent working an overdue account or a contractor chasing an invoice falls outside the offense even when the recipient finds the calls annoying. A conversation that starts as business and turns into personal abuse can still cross the line.¹

Penalties at the Baseline

Both offenses are Class C misdemeanors. The maximum sentence is three months in jail. The maximum fine is $500.²³

That places harassment among the lowest-level criminal offenses in Alabama, but a conviction still creates a permanent record unless you successfully petition for expungement. Even a misdemeanor can affect job applications, housing, and professional licensing. Judges also have discretion to add conditions like counseling or community service, especially for first-time defendants.

The real risk is escalation. The same conduct that draws a Class C misdemeanor on its own becomes something much worse when the target is a family member or intimate partner, or when the behavior repeats.

When the Victim Is a Family or Dating Partner

This is where many people are caught off guard. If harassment under Section 13A-11-8 is committed against a current or former spouse, a parent, a child, a household member, a co-parent, or someone the accused has or had a dating relationship with, it is not charged as simple harassment. It becomes domestic violence in the third degree, a Class A misdemeanor.⁴

The penalty jump matters. A Class A misdemeanor carries up to one year in jail rather than three months, and the consequences compound with each conviction:²

First offense: Class A misdemeanor. If the accused violated a protection order in the process, a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail applies with no time reduction.
Second offense: Still a Class A misdemeanor, with a mandatory minimum of 10 days in jail.
Third or subsequent offense: Class C felony.
Prior conviction for first- or second-degree domestic violence, or domestic violence by strangulation: even a first harassment-based charge becomes a Class C felony automatically.

The dating relationship category is broad. It covers any current or former relationship with a romantic or intimate character and does not require living together. It does not cover casual acquaintances, business relationships, or relationships that ended more than 12 months before the petition was filed.⁴

When Repetition or Threats Push It Into Stalking

Alabama’s stalking statutes carry far steeper penalties than the harassment statute, and repeated harassing behavior can move a case into that territory.

Stalking in the Second Degree

Second-degree stalking occurs when a person intentionally and repeatedly follows, harasses, calls, or initiates contact with another (or their family or acquaintances) with an improper purpose, after being told to stop, and the conduct causes real harm to the victim’s mental or emotional health or makes them reasonably fear for their job or career. The key elements are repetition, prior warning, and actual harm. Second-degree stalking is a Class B misdemeanor, carrying up to six months in jail.⁵

Stalking in the First Degree

First-degree stalking is a felony. It applies when a person intentionally and repeatedly follows or harasses someone and makes a threat, express or implied, that places the target in reasonable fear of death or serious physical injury. Repeated harassment plus a credible threat of serious harm turns the case into a Class C felony with potential prison time well beyond anything a misdemeanor allows.⁶

A single harassing phone call might be a Class C misdemeanor. A pattern of calls that continues after the caller has been told to stop can become second-degree stalking. Add threats of serious harm, and it becomes a felony.

The Firearm Consequence People Miss

A harassment conviction can trigger a federal ban on possessing firearms and ammunition under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), which prohibits anyone convicted of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” from owning, purchasing, or possessing any firearm or ammunition.⁷

Two conditions have to be met. The offense must have involved physical force, attempted physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon. And the victim must have been a spouse, former spouse, co-parent, someone who lived with the accused as a spouse, or a dating partner. A conviction for shoving or striking a spouse during a domestic dispute would almost certainly qualify. A conviction for directing obscene language at a stranger would not.⁸

A plea to a Class C misdemeanor harassment charge can look like a minor outcome on paper. If the underlying facts involved physical contact with a domestic partner, that plea can end gun rights permanently under federal law.

Defenses to a Harassment Charge

The most direct defense is challenging intent. Because the statute requires a deliberate purpose to harass, annoy, or alarm, conduct that was accidental, misunderstood, or carried out for a legitimate reason fails the legal standard. Bumping into someone in a crowded hallway is not a shove just because it was received that way.¹

Legitimate Purpose

For harassing communications specifically, the statute’s business communication exemption is a built-in defense. If the contact had a genuine purpose beyond bothering the recipient, it may not qualify. Debt collection calls, service follow-ups, and workplace communications generally fall into this category, and the same logic can extend to a parent making repeated calls about child custody arrangements even when the other parent finds the calls unwelcome.¹

First Amendment Limits

The abusive language provision has to operate within First Amendment boundaries. The Supreme Court has held that the government can restrict speech only when it qualifies as “fighting words,” meaning personally directed insults inherently likely to provoke a violent reaction from the person addressed. Merely offensive, profane, or vulgar speech that does not rise to that level remains constitutionally protected.⁹

Someone yelling profanity during a public argument is not automatically committing harassment even if bystanders are offended. The words have to be directed at a specific person in a way calculated to provoke. Political speech, protest, and heated disagreement generally receive constitutional protection even when the language is coarse.

Credibility and Context

Many harassment cases come down to one person’s word against another’s, particularly when there are no witnesses or recordings. Defense strategies often focus on inconsistencies in the accuser’s account or the broader context of the interaction. When both parties were equally aggressive during a mutual argument, that context can undermine the picture of a single targeted victim.

Protection Orders for Victims

Alabama’s Protection From Abuse Act lists harassment under Section 13A-11-8 as a qualifying form of abuse, alongside stalking and assault.¹⁰ Protection orders are available only against people with a qualifying relationship to the victim, such as current or former spouses, co-parents, current or former household members who had a romantic or sexual relationship, dating partners, and certain family members. A protection order is not available against a stranger or a coworker with no personal relationship; criminal charges and civil options like a restraining order are the routes in those situations.

A petitioner files the Petition for Protection from Abuse at the county courthouse clerk’s office, in the county where they live or where they have temporarily relocated to escape abuse. Courts can issue temporary ex parte orders immediately and then schedule a hearing. Violating a protection order can bring contempt charges and, as noted above, triggers the enhanced mandatory minimum if new domestic violence charges follow. Alabama also has to honor valid protection orders issued in other states under the federal Violence Against Women Act, even without formal registration.¹¹

Workplace Harassment Is a Different System

People looking up Alabama harassment laws sometimes mean workplace harassment, which is a separate legal framework. Criminal harassment involves police, prosecutors, and potential jail time. Workplace harassment is a civil matter governed primarily by federal employment law, and it becomes unlawful only when the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment or when tolerating it becomes a condition of employment.¹² Workplace complaints go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, not local law enforcement, and the deadlines and remedies come from that separate system.¹³

1
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-11-8 – Harassment or Harassing Communications
2
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-5-7 – Sentences of Imprisonment for Misdemeanors
3
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-5-12 – Fines for Misdemeanors and Violations
4
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-6-132 – Domestic Violence in the Third Degree
5
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-6-90.1 – Stalking in the Second Degree
6
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-6-90 – Stalking in the First Degree
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
8
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Misdemeanor Crimes of Domestic Violence
9
Congress.gov. Fighting Words
10
Justia Law. Alabama Code 30-5-2 – Definitions
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2261A – Stalking
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Harassment
13
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge