Harassment Definition in Arkansas: Penalties and Protection Orders

Harassment laws in Arkansas make it a crime to purposely annoy, alarm, or distress another person without a legitimate reason, and the state prosecutes the behavior under three separate statutes covering in-person conduct, electronic communications, and cyberbullying. A basic harassment charge is a misdemeanor, but repeated conduct can be charged as stalking and reach felony territory, and a conviction involving a family or intimate partner triggers a federal firearm ban. What counts, and what the punishment looks like, depends on how the conduct was carried out and who the target was.

What Counts as Criminal Harassment

The core harassment statute is Arkansas Code § 5-71-208. A prosecutor has to prove two things: the person acted with the purpose to harass, annoy, or alarm someone, and the conduct had no good cause behind it.¹ The second element does real work. Annoying conduct with a legitimate reason behind it, like a neighbor pressing a property-line complaint, generally falls outside the statute even if the other person feels bothered.

Six categories of conduct qualify. The first is physical: offensive contact, or the threat or attempt of it. You don’t have to injure anyone. Grabbing an arm or shoving is enough when done with harassing intent.¹

The other five cover non-physical behavior:

Repeated conduct that alarms or seriously annoys someone and serves no legitimate purpose.
Following someone in or around a public place with the purpose to harass.
Directing obscene language or gestures at someone in public in a way likely to provoke a violent response.
Repeatedly insulting or challenging someone in public when the words are likely to provoke a violent or disorderly reaction.
Loitering outside a person’s home, workplace, school, or vehicle for no reason other than to harass, annoy, or alarm them.

Several of these require a public setting or a likelihood of provoking violence. A single insult, however offensive, doesn’t clear the “repeatedly” bar for the taunting provision, and obscene language shouted at someone in their own home isn’t covered by the public-obscenity provision.

Harassing Communications by Phone, Text, or Online

Arkansas addresses technology-based harassment in a separate statute, § 5-71-209. It reaches phone calls, mail, email, text messages, social media, and any electronic device that connects to the internet.²

The first branch of the offense covers conduct meant to harass, annoy, or alarm:

Communicating in any form in a manner likely to alarm or annoy the recipient.
Making phone calls or causing a phone to ring repeatedly with no legitimate purpose, whether or not the call is answered.
Knowingly allowing a phone or electronic device under your control to be used for a harassing purpose.
Threatening by phone, text, social media, or email to take action the sender knows would be illegal.
Placing two or more anonymous calls at inconvenient hours in a repetitive pattern without legitimate purpose.

The second branch covers communications meant to frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress. That includes false reports of injury, illness, or death sent to someone the sender knows will be upset by the news, and any communication without legitimate purpose that the sender knows or should know would frighten a person of ordinary sensibilities.²

Cyberbullying

Arkansas has a third statute at § 5-71-217 aimed at cyberbullying, and it applies to adults as well as minors. A person commits the offense by transmitting an electronic communication with the purpose to frighten, coerce, intimidate, threaten, abuse, or harass someone, where that transmission furthers a pattern of severe, repeated, or hostile behavior toward the target.³

The difference from harassing communications is the pattern requirement. A single anonymous phone call or threatening text can support a harassing-communications charge; cyberbullying needs the behavior to be severe, repeated, or hostile. One rude post typically won’t qualify. Dozens of hostile messages over several days will.

Penalties

Criminal harassment and harassing communications are both Class A misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.⁴⁵ Cyberbullying is a Class B misdemeanor, with lower maximum penalties, but it rises to a Class A misdemeanor when the victim is a school employee.³

When someone is arrested for harassment or harassing communications and released before trial, the court is required to enter a written no-contact order. That order stays in place through the pendency of the case and, if the defendant is convicted, through any appeal.¹ Continued contact in violation of that order can push the case toward a stalking charge.

When Harassment Becomes Stalking

Repeated harassment can be charged as stalking, and the penalties change dramatically. Arkansas defines a “course of conduct” as two or more acts, separated by at least 36 hours but occurring within one year, in which the person follows, monitors, surveils, threatens, or communicates to or about the victim. The stalking statute borrows its definition of “harasses” directly from § 5-71-208, so the same categories of conduct apply.⁶

Stalking comes in three degrees:

Third-degree stalking is a Class A misdemeanor. It applies when the person knowingly engages in conduct that would put a reasonable person in emotional distress and in fear for personal safety or the safety of another.
Second-degree stalking is a Class C felony, punishable by three to ten years in prison. It applies when the harassing conduct is combined with a terroristic threat intended to place the victim in immediate fear of death or serious bodily injury.⁴
First-degree stalking is a Class B felony, punishable by five to twenty years in prison. It applies when the stalking conduct is combined with a violation of an existing protective order, when the person carries or claims to carry a deadly weapon, or when the person has a prior stalking or terroristic-threatening conviction within the past ten years.⁶

Continuing to contact someone after a protective order has been entered is one of the clearest paths from a misdemeanor to a first-degree felony charge.

Firearm Loss After a Domestic Harassment Conviction

A harassment conviction involving a domestic relationship reaches beyond jail time. Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing, purchasing, or transporting firearms or ammunition.⁷ A qualifying conviction is one that involved the use or attempted use of physical force, or a threat of force, against a spouse, former spouse, cohabitant, parent, or other intimate partner.

That means a Class A misdemeanor harassment conviction under § 5-71-208 can permanently strip firearm rights when the victim falls within one of those relationships. The ban applies even if the state court never mentions firearms at sentencing, and it applies to convictions that predate the federal law.

Civil Orders of Protection

A criminal case isn’t the only response available. Arkansas allows a person to petition the circuit court for an Order of Protection under the Domestic Abuse Act, starting at § 9-15-201.⁸ The civil process runs independently of any criminal prosecution, and you don’t need the prosecutor’s involvement to pursue it.

The Domestic Abuse Act only covers specific relationships. You and the person you seek protection from must be spouses, former spouses, parents and children, blood relatives within the fourth degree, in-laws, current or former cohabitants, people who share a child, or people in a current or former dating relationship.⁹ A coworker you’ve never dated, a casual acquaintance, or a stranger does not qualify under this statute.

Where the statute does apply, the court’s authority is broad. An Order of Protection can:

Remove the abuser from a shared home or your residence.
Bar the abuser from your workplace, school, or other locations.
Award temporary custody of children and set visitation terms.
Order temporary child support or spousal support.
Prohibit direct or indirect contact.
Assign care and custody of household pets.
Grant any other relief the court considers necessary for protection.

An order lasts between 90 days and ten years at the court’s discretion, and can be renewed if the threat continues. The court may also award a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party.¹⁰

When Federal Charges Can Also Apply

Harassing conduct that crosses state lines or uses the internet can bring federal charges on top of state ones. The federal stalking statute at 18 U.S.C. § 2261A prohibits using any internet service or electronic communication to engage in a course of conduct that causes or would reasonably be expected to cause substantial emotional distress, or that places someone in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury. Sentences reach up to five years, longer if the conduct results in injury or death. Federal jurisdiction doesn’t require the parties to be in different states; using the internet supplies the interstate element.

A separate federal statute, 47 U.S.C. § 223, prohibits using a telecommunications device with the intent to abuse, threaten, or harass someone, with penalties up to two years. Threats to kidnap or injure someone transmitted through interstate communications carry up to five years under 18 U.S.C. § 875, and up to twenty years if the threat is tied to extortion.¹¹ Federal prosecutors typically pursue these cases when the conduct is severe or when state charges alone don’t adequately address the situation.

1
Justia. Arkansas Code 5-71-208 – Harassment
2
Justia. Arkansas Code 5-71-209 – Harassing Communications
3
Justia. Arkansas Code 5-71-217 – Cyberbullying
4
Justia. Arkansas Code 5-4-401 – Sentence
5
Justia. Arkansas Code 5-4-201 – Fines – Limitations on Amount
6
Justia. Arkansas Code 5-71-229 – Stalking
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
8
Justia. Arkansas Code 9-15-201 – Petition – Requirements Generally
9
Justia. Arkansas Code 9-15-103 – Definitions
10
Justia. Arkansas Code 9-15-205 – Relief Generally
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 875 – Interstate Communications