What Is Considered Harassment in Wisconsin: Laws & Penalties

In Wisconsin, harassment is intentional behavior aimed at harassing or intimidating another person that serves no legitimate purpose. It covers physical contact, threats of physical contact, and any course of conduct or repeated acts carried out with that intent. The base offense is a civil forfeiture rather than a crime, and understanding what is considered harassment in Wisconsin matters because the law only turns criminal once specific thresholds are crossed, such as a credible threat combined with a restraining order violation or a qualifying prior conviction.¹

The Legal Definition

Wisconsin’s harassment statute reaches a person who acts with intent to harass or intimidate another in one of two ways. The first is subjecting someone to physical contact, or attempting or threatening to do so. The second is engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts that harass or intimidate the person and that serve no legitimate purpose.¹

“Course of conduct” means a pattern of acts over any period of time showing a continuity of purpose. The pattern doesn’t need weeks or months to form. A series of acts in a single day can qualify if they demonstrate ongoing intent. A “credible threat” is one made with both the intent and the apparent ability to carry it out, a definition that becomes important once penalties escalate.¹

Intent is the linchpin. The state has to prove the person acted specifically to harass or intimidate. Accidentally annoying someone, even repeatedly, doesn’t meet that standard. And the “no legitimate purpose” element means contact tied to a real legal, business, or personal reason usually falls outside the statute.

Repeated Unwanted Contact

The most common pattern is persistent, unwanted communication. Phone calls, texts, letters, emails, and in-person visits that continue after someone has made clear they want no further contact can all qualify as a course of conduct.¹

The messages don’t have to be explicitly threatening. Neutral or polite contact can still count if it’s repeated despite clear objections, lacks any legitimate purpose, and is driven by intent to intimidate or distress. Courts look at frequency, the nature of the contact, whether the recipient asked for it to stop, and the overall effect on the person’s sense of security. These disputes often involve former partners, neighbors, or coworkers.

One nuance worth knowing. A single unwanted call or text generally won’t meet the “course of conduct” threshold on its own because the statute looks for a pattern. But a single act of physical contact, or a single threat of physical contact, can qualify under the other prong without any repetition.

Harassment Through Electronic Communication

Wisconsin has a separate statute for harassment carried out through computerized communication systems. Sending a threatening message by email, social media, text, or any computerized system is a Class B misdemeanor when done with intent to frighten, intimidate, or abuse the recipient. The same applies to sending obscene or profane messages with that intent, and to sending threatening or abusive messages while hiding your identity.²

A lower tier, carrying a civil forfeiture, covers sending repeated messages solely to harass someone, or sending obscene messages with intent to harass, annoy, or offend. The split between criminal and civil liability tracks the severity of intent. Frightening or intimidating triggers the misdemeanor; annoying or offending stays a forfeiture.²

Social media conduct doesn’t need to be a direct message to the victim. Posting harmful content about someone, encouraging others to target them, or impersonating them through fake profiles can all fall within the statute if the intent and effect match. Screenshots, message logs, and metadata often drive these cases because they timestamp both the content and the pattern.

Nonconsensual Intimate Images

A separate felony statute criminalizes capturing an intimate representation of someone without consent, or distributing images originally shared privately. This is a Class I felony, punishable by up to three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine.³⁴

The statute covers photographs, video, audio recordings, and synthetic intimate representations, meaning AI-generated images that use a real person’s face or likeness. Anyone under 18 is legally incapable of consenting, which makes any such images of a minor automatically illegal.³

When It Becomes Stalking

Stalking is a related but more serious offense. Wisconsin defines it as an intentional course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress or to fear bodily injury or death for themselves or a family member. Unlike general harassment, stalking is a felony from the start.⁵

The statute lists specific acts that can form the course of conduct:

Maintaining visual contact, following, approaching, or confronting the victim
Showing up at the victim’s home or workplace, or contacting their neighbors, employers, or coworkers
Repeated phone calls, texts, emails, or social media messages, or causing someone’s phone to ring continuously
Photographing, recording, or electronically tracking the victim’s activities
Sending materials to the victim’s family, friends, or employer to obtain or share information about the victim

Two or more of these acts over any period of time can establish the required course of conduct. The base offense is a Class I felony, with higher classifications when there’s a prior violent crime conviction, a prior conviction involving the same victim within seven years, unauthorized access to the victim’s electronic records, a victim under 18, or resulting bodily harm.⁵

Harassment at Work

Workplace harassment runs on a separate track. The Wisconsin Fair Employment Act protects employees from harassment based on ancestry, age (40 and older), arrest or conviction record, color, creed, disability, marital status, military reserve membership, national origin, race, sex, and sexual orientation.⁶

Workplace harassment becomes illegal in two situations. The first is when an employer, supervisor, or coworker singles you out because of a protected characteristic. The second is when the content of the harassment relates to a protected characteristic, such as sexual comments, racial slurs, or disability-related mockery.⁶

Employers are liable for harassment by their agents regardless of whether they authorized or knew about it. For harassment between coworkers, the employer is liable if it knew or should have known and failed to take immediate corrective action. The same standard applies when non-employees like customers or vendors harass workers during the workday.⁶

You have 300 days from an incident to file a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Equal Rights Division. Federal protections through the EEOC may also apply, and employers face automatic liability when supervisor harassment leads to a negative employment action like termination or demotion.⁷

Penalties

At its base level, harassment under the general statute is a Class B forfeiture, which is a civil fine with no jail time. Criminal exposure only begins when specific conditions line up.¹

Class A misdemeanor, up to 9 months in jail and a $10,000 fine: the harassment includes a credible threat placing the victim in reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm, and it occurs while the offender is already subject to a restraining order or injunction. Both conditions must be present.¹⁸
Class I felony, up to 3.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine: the Class A misdemeanor-level conduct occurs and the person has a prior harassment or stalking conviction involving the same victim within the past seven years.¹⁴
Class H felony, up to 6 years in prison and a $10,000 fine: the Class A misdemeanor-level conduct occurs and the person intentionally accesses electronic records containing the victim’s personally identifiable information to carry out the harassment.¹⁴

Digital harassment has its own penalty track. Sending threatening, obscene, or anonymous messages with intent to frighten or intimidate is a Class B misdemeanor, up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Lower-level electronic harassment, where the intent is only to annoy or offend, is a Class B forfeiture.²⁸

Prosecutors sometimes charge harassment-like conduct as disorderly conduct instead, under a statute covering violent, abusive, profane, or otherwise disorderly behavior that tends to cause or provoke a disturbance. Disorderly conduct is a Class B misdemeanor.⁹

Getting a Harassment Restraining Order

Even when harassment stays below the criminal threshold, Wisconsin offers a civil remedy that doesn’t depend on a prosecutor. You file a petition yourself in the circuit court in the county where you live, where the respondent lives, or where the harassment occurred. The petition must describe the specific acts, name the respondent, and state that the respondent acted with intent to harass or intimidate. If the court finds the petition sufficient, a judge or court commissioner can issue a temporary restraining order without the respondent being present.¹⁰¹¹

The temporary order stays in effect for roughly two weeks, until the court holds a full hearing where both sides can present evidence. If the petition involves domestic abuse or stalking allegations, the court and sheriff’s office cannot charge filing or service fees. Other types of harassment may incur fees.¹¹

If the court finds sufficient grounds at the hearing, a final injunction can last up to four years. If there’s a substantial risk the respondent may commit serious violence or sexual assault against the petitioner, the injunction can last up to ten years. When the respondent has been convicted of sexual assault against the petitioner, the injunction can be made permanent.¹⁰

Violating a harassment restraining order or injunction carries up to nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine. This applies regardless of whether the underlying conduct would have been only a forfeiture on its own. In practice, the restraining order is often what converts non-criminal harassment into conduct with real jail exposure.¹⁰

What Does Not Count

Not every unpleasant interaction is harassment. The statute explicitly excludes lawful conduct in labor disputes, so picketing, union activity, and related advocacy are protected even when the target finds them annoying or intimidating.¹

The “legitimate purpose” requirement carves out more ground. A landlord sending repeated notices about lease violations, a creditor contacting you about a real debt, or a neighbor raising genuine property-line concerns usually has a legitimate purpose even when the contact is unwelcome. Protected speech sits in the same category. Political criticism, negative online reviews, and public commentary on matters of public concern are generally protected by the Wisconsin Constitution and the First Amendment, even when the subject finds them offensive.

The intent requirement is another barrier. Someone who genuinely doesn’t realize their contact is unwanted, or who is contacting you for a reason other than harassment, hasn’t met the statutory threshold. Courts look at the totality of the circumstances, including whether the person was told to stop, the nature of the relationship, and whether the contact has any plausible non-harassing explanation.

1
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 947.013 – Harassment
2
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 947.0125 – Unlawful Use of Computerized Communication Systems
3
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 942.09 – Representations Depicting Nudity
4
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 939.50 – Classification of Felonies
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Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 940.32 – Stalking
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Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. Prohibiting Harassment in the Workplace
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U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Harassment
8
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 939.51 – Classification of Misdemeanors
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Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 947.01 – Disorderly Conduct
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Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 813.125 – Harassment Restraining Order and Injunction
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Wisconsin Court System. Restraining Orders