Problem
Research has suggested that there are a number of challenges with completing research with sex offenders. These include the impact of voluntary versus mandated participation (Jones et al., as cited by Beech et al., 2015), distrust of researchers (due, in part to past stigmatization), difficulty finding offenders living in the community who are willing to participate, oversharing of information, researchers emotionally reacting to the heard stories, and the emotional impact on the sex offenders when they tell their story (Klein et al., 2018).
What are your thoughts on ethnographic research, particularly participatory action research (Richards & Morse, 2013) with sex offenders? Would empowering participants to be part of the research enable increased trust and mitigate some of the other commonly encountered challenges?