I'll Come Back and Stalk You

In this article, I analyze conflicts between advocacy and research on offenders and specifically male offenders. The analysis is based on the contradictory investments I had as a female researcher and an advocate during Kevin's final months on death row until his execution. My activism on Kevin's behalf facilitated research access. The interviews provided Kevin with a rare forum for enacting a powerful masculine self, a demonstration that eventually positioned me as his victim. The assuredness of Kevin's execution allowed me to ignore his harassment and to continue data collection. As criminologists, we are likely to be consumers of state control. Criminologists, and specifically women, may also be objects of informants' control. Presented in their structural context, research interactions can illuminate both the far reach of state power and the gendered nature of criminology.