WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Imagine you're spending a quiet evening at home with your family, when, out of nowhere, dozens of heavily armed police officers are outside your front door, responding to a threat of violence that is not real.

It's a phenomenon called swatting.

Lisa Desjardins reports on this growing problem.

LISA DESJARDINS: In recent weeks, we have seen many high-profile targets of these hoax 911 calls, among them Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley twice, special counsel Jack Smith and Judge Tanya Chutkan, who are overseeing the Donald Trump federal investigation and trial, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who disqualified Trump from the ballot there, and nearly three dozen members of Congress since Christmas, according to one report.

That includes House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Representatives Shontel Brown and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Senator Rick Scott.

Today, House minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded to the recent wave of threats.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Members of Congress should be able to serve free of violence, harassment and intimidation on both sides of the aisle, so we can do what the American people sent us to Washington to do, which is solve problems and deliver real results.

LISA DESJARDINS: Just this week, the House sergeant at arms sent a letter to members' families about their security, advising them to stay in touch with local law enforcement.

To help explain swatting and what can be done to stop it, I'm joined by Lauren Shapiro, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of "Cyberpredators and Their Prey."

Lauren, what is swatting and how fast is it growing?

LAUREN SHAPIRO, John Jay College of Criminal Justice: Swatting simply means calling 911 to report falsely when an incident is occurring, and serious, such as kidnapping, killing, in order to get a response from the police.

Preferably, they want SWAT to come in to harm the people who are the victims.

In terms of the degree to which swatting is growing, I think it's more that people are reporting it and the news is reporting it, rather than there's an increase, per se.

I think people are becoming more aware of it.

Of it.

LISA DESJARDINS: You know, in the past, things like pulling a fire alarm or calling it a bomb threat, especially at schools, have been seen more as a nuisance than a direct harm to people and families.

But can you help us understand, with swatting, what is the direct harm that we're seeing?

LAUREN SHAPIRO: Well, first of all, you're taking the police and other first responders from (INAUDIBLE) this situation.

You're also wasting a lot of resources from any particular community in terms of money they need to have equipment be used, to pay salaries.

So there is a very negative effect on the community and on society in general, as well as for the victims being harassed by the swatting.

LISA DESJARDINS: But in cases like this, these are police, sometimes fully armed, coming in with their weapons, sometimes throwing the innocent people, the victims down on the floor.

I know there really have been relative -- there's only been two cases of deaths associated with this, which is remarkable.

But one reason it's been in the headline so much now is, I think, politicians increasingly being targeted, including, as we mentioned, presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

Here's what she said this week on "Meet the Press."

NIKKI HALEY (R), Presidential Candidate: The last thing you want is to see multiple law enforcement officials with guns drawn pointing at my parents and thinking that something happened.

It is an awful situation.

It put the law enforcement officers in danger.

It put my family in danger and it was not a safe situation.

LISA DESJARDINS: Can you help us understand the motive here?

To what degree is there more political targeting now?

To what degree is this sort of just a despicable kind of sport for some young people?

LAUREN SHAPIRO: I think you're on the mark there, because people who do not agree with anybody who's on the news or making a statement on the Internet become targets.

It's not just politicians.

It could be anyone.

It could be celebrities.

Currently, there is this atmosphere of hostility.

And I think that there's permission given in some way to go ahead and harass these other people.

LISA DESJARDINS: You don't necessarily call this a crime.

Why is this not a crime everywhere right now?

LAUREN SHAPIRO: This is just not at the federal level considered to be a crime.

There's no law that's associated with it.

And so in order to prosecute this kind of swatting incident, what you have to do is match the elements of a particular law with what actually is happening.

It's like a puzzle piece way of trying to prosecute the offender.

LISA DESJARDINS: That is wild, because, as much as we're talking about this now, and we're seeing more prominent examples, this has been going on for well more than a decade, and growing Another issue, of course, is, what do you do about it?

We showed that letter from the House sergeant at arms to family members, from members of Congress.

But that letter really doesn't say much specifically that they should do.

What exactly are police and family members, what can they do?

What are they doing?

LAUREN SHAPIRO: Well, currently, the FBI has a national database.

And they're trying to gather across the country information about swatting, what actually happens, the number of times it occurs.

But it is asking people from multiple jurisdictions to contribute to it.

Without it being a law, we also can't have money to train 911 operators.

We don't have enough funding to help train law enforcement to deal with these kinds of situations.

LISA DESJARDINS: Lauren Shapiro of John Jay College, thank you so much.

LAUREN SHAPIRO: Thank you very much for having me.