I Am a Stalker

This could have been a great analysis of the types of stalking behaviours, but instead it was a superficial, almost reality tv kind of offering where we see stalkers and those being stalked remembering their experiences (valid, of course). Why the need to stretch it into 8 episodes - I cannot fathom, when it could have easily been condensed into a documentary film or a miniseries with much more professional insight into what actually happens in these disturbing situations. Was hoping to learn something new from this, but ended up just watching iterations of the same thing without any in depth analysis of the phenomenon of stalking.

This documentary series certainly draws attention to the crime of aggravated stalking and the paltry sentences issued to perpetrators in these cases. It's clear that laws differ state by state, and that punishment for stalking is all over the place.

While there is an interesting format of providing both the sides of the victims and their incarcerated offenders, there was an opportunity missed in determining whether the parties viewed past events differently. Interviewers could have played a greater role in challenging the offenders' statements. There also seemed to be a great deal of missing information, as though the documentarians wanted to get by with as few interviews as possible. Where are the attorneys, judges, juries in these cases? Were there just too few individuals' perspectives to seek to make this a richer discussion?

The whole series might have been better off as a podcast, where anonymity could have been kept and B roll of houses and letters in mailboxes (the same shots used more than once) and, strangely, close-ups of people's hands could have been avoided.

While this series and the "I'm A Killer" series are interesting and heartbreaking, how is no one editing these before they aired? Grammar is terrible, and the text on the screen is out if sequence. "I'm A Stalker", "Close To Death" , the victim clearly states she was in hiding but only left her house to go to class, then the text on the screen says "while living in hiding Sadie decided to resume her nursing studies". Duh, she said she was going to class. The images of houses don't match the story, she is talking about living in an apartment and they show several different houses? In episode "A Family Stalker" text on the screen says, "will be eligible to apply for parole FROM 2028", should be "will be eligible to apply for parole in 2028". Lots of these grammatical errors occurred in " I'm A Killer" too. For a Netflix doc this is poor. Fire your editors. The people who participated in these stories deserve better.

Generally I find this documentary series quite interesting, because you get to hear from the criminals who have committed these crimes, but it is done with tact and very little sensationalism. Another good thing about this series is that it shows you the mentality of the American justice system, which is a reflection of American society. For example, one of the stalkers is a lesbian, and as part of her treatment I guess she decides to go to church where they say that her natural feelings are against god's plan. That kind of makes sense because that is what Christianity teaches. It doesn't have anything to do with whether a person is a stalker or not. More egregious was the sentence given to a lady who felt like her husband and his ex were becoming too close. She decided to drop mysterious packages off at the ex's place, because the ex was a Conservative Christian she made sure that these packages looked mysterious and that they looked like they had occult origins. So the stalker got 8 years probation for this - and was ordered by the court to not see her mother for 8 years because her mother happened to drive her to the ex's place once. That seems to be a sentence that is so Draconian because the people in the justice system actually believe in the existence of the occult. I've never heard of someone being ordered not to associate with their own parents, even serial killers are not ordered to do that. Their parents can visit them in prison. And it's weird how the victim called the police because there was a picture of her delivered to her house and on the picture was a pentagram? It's a bit of a joke when people say that America is like the Christian Taliban, but sometimes it's true. I do believe that this person was stalking the victim and that she did deserve some sort of punishment, like a few years or a year of probation, but I really don't understand what the point of punishing the mother at all was. Probably other stalkers were driven to places where they were stalking people by their friends, so are we saying that just because you have friends and relatives they need to be punished for your bad actions. The rest of the series is a good examination of what needs to break in your mind for you to become a stalker.

I started watching this on Netflix because I work in Mental Health and thought it would be interesting to hear directly from the Stalkers. It's chilling how their mind works. Chilling, disturbing and you can see how delusional they are, and how far they can get in their activities and still excuse themselves of it and not accept accountability.

The reality of just how many stalker are out there, known stalkers, vs how many people haven't yet acted on the impulses is scary.

Even though this is an American series and the laws are different there, this is an informative series that people should watch to become informed, to learn how to recognize the signs and steps to take to protect yourself.

I am only part way through it and have watched at least one episode where the stalkers were women. Not common, but they presented themselves in an entirely different way from the male stalkers.

I recommend it.