Dateline: Catch a Predator

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punisherthunder

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What does everyone think of those Dateline: Catch a Predator shows? Good or bad?
 
I would say that I watched it a few times, but now I just can’t stomach it anymore. I applaud them for exposing these men, I just can’t watch it continuously, it’s heartbreaking that these men are everywhere.😦
 
whowantsumadebo said:
Comically unsettling.
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Anything to make money. Catching criminals is not entertainment it’s a job. Getting an entertainment out of watching people catch criminals is okay?! I don’t think so. Dateline wins in a landslide when it comes to moral relativism.
 
If it makes one sicko child molester think twice about arranging to meet up with a 14 year old for fear that maybe they’ll end up on Dateline, I’m all for it.

I agree with the other poster though… can’t stomach it. When I watched it a couple of times, what struck me most was how these men came from all walks of life - teachers, postal workers, fireman, a rabbi… it’s like they are everywhere. 😦
 
Something to think about…Do you know who your minor teens are talking to online and what they are talking about?

Is your comp in the family area?

Ever leave the kid on the comp when everyone else goes to bed or find them on in the middle of the night?

When was the last time you check your browser’s history to see what sites have been visited?

Does your kid have a MySpace account? Have you looked at it?

It’s entirely possible that the enemy is right there in your own home…and not really everywhere.

Just some common sense thoughts.
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum,
 
punisherthunder said:
What does everyone think of those Dateline: Catch a Predator shows? Good or bad?
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I’m waiting for one of the pervs to pull out a gun & shoot Stone Phillips.

I’ve watched it a couple times, I don’t think it should be a TV show (after all, the cops could do the same thing themselves) but nowadays there’s no such thing as journalism, there is only infotainment.
 
“lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”

Dateline has a different philosophy:
“lead them into temptation and delvier them onto evil”, and in the process provide entertainment and make money.
 
And things reach their logical conclusion – I just found this story on ABC.

Sexual-Predator Sting Ends in Former Texas Prosecutor’s Suicide

DALLAS, Texas, Nov. 7, 2006 — A sexual-predator sting turned into a different sort of crime scene when a former prosecutor committed suicide as police surrounded his home.
When police arrived, they attempted to serve former Kaufman County District Attorney Louis “Bill” Conradt Jr. with a search warrant for his computer and an arrest warrant.
Police said Conradt attempted to make arrangements over the Internet to have sex with a decoy who was posing as a 13-year-old boy.

He refused to answer the door when they arrived, and was subsequently found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
An NBC camera crew was also outside the house when the gunshot was heard. According to The Dallas Morning News, the sting resulting in Conradt’s arrest warrant was a joint operation between the Internet watchdog group Perverted Justice and NBC’s “Dateline.”

As part of the group’s plan, 22 men seeking sex with children were lured to a house in Murphy, Texas, and arrested. Murphy police said Conradt did not go to the house, but they believed he would.
 
I just heard about this show yesterday from people at work, in conjunction with the story of a politician who supposedly killed himself in response to allegations on this show, or on the trailers for this show. I have never seen it myself, nor would I ever consider watching something like this for entertainment. It sounds like it circumvents due process, interferes with legitimate criminal invenstigations and preys on the sickest motivations of human beings in providing so-called entertainment. If the producers of this show genuinely possess evidence of criminal actions and air them as entertainment masquerading as journalism rather than immediately turning the evidence over to legitamate law authorties, they becom accessories after the fact, in my opinion.
 
puzzleannie said:
I just heard about this show yesterday from people at work, in conjunction with the story of a politician who supposedly killed himself in response to allegations on this show, or on the trailers for this show. I have never seen it myself, nor would I ever consider watching something like this for entertainment. It sounds like it circumvents due process, interferes with legitimate criminal invenstigations and preys on the sickest motivations of human beings in providing so-called entertainment. If the producers of this show genuinely possess evidence of criminal actions and air them as entertainment masquerading as journalism rather than immediately turning the evidence over to legitamate law authorties, they becom accessories after the fact, in my opinion.
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Ditto.

In my state there was a time when there were stings where policewomen guise as prostitutes in an attempt to lure mototists into making them a propersition. The local papers and talk local talk show hosts made thier own respective choices on whether to make public the names of thew so called “johns” that were arrested.

Most papers just ran a story but one local paper made public the names. I recall one man killed himself upon learning that his family and friends would find out. I thought this was a terrible injustice.
 
As I am not much of a fan of entrapment but realize it is necessary, I am 100% against it being televised. I dont waste my time on this show.
 
didymus said:
As part of the group’s plan, 22 men seeking sex with children were lured to a house in Murphy, Texas, and arrested. Murphy police said Conradt did not go to the house, but they believed he would.
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So they arrested him for something he did not do, but they thought that he would do? That’s kind of scary.
 
Church_Militant said:
Something to think about…Do you know who your minor teens are talking to online and what they are talking about?
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Another thought, based on the incident related above: If your teen–or your husband–is watching internet pornography, does this mean the police can knock on the door with a search warrant, and haul them away?
 
deb1 said:
From what I understand this is a common tactic used by the police.
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Well, I can understand arresting him if he went to the house for sex with a minor–even though there was never a minor involved–but if he never even went there? That kind of obviates the need for there even to be a set up house, doesn’t it?
 
JimG said:
Another thought, based on the incident related above: If your teen–or your husband–is watching internet pornography, does this mean the police can knock on the door with a search warrant, and haul them away?
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My sons got in a very bad situation in which they looked at porn and had to come tell me. (at the time they were 14 and 11)

They were looking up video game cheats. At the top of one of the pages was an add for porn that had a picture of a near naked woman. Intrigued, they hit the link and found other links.

Unfortunately, at this point pop screens of very deranged acts began to spring up and they didn’t know how to stop the pop ups. Luckily they came to me. But I think that porn must still be somewhere on my hard drive. :mad:

By the way, the computer is in the family room. It only took them a few seconds to find the porn that they weren’t initially looking for in the first place.😦
 
JimG said:
Well, I can understand arresting him if he went to the house for sex with a minor–even though there was never a minor involved–but if he never even went there? That kind of obviates the need for there even to be a set up house, doesn’t it?
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I’m sorry, I was referring to the police pretending to be a prostitute in order to catch johns.
 
JimG said:
So they arrested him for something he did not do, but they thought that he would do? That’s kind of scary.
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In some states, it is illegal to enter into any kind of sexaul conversation with a minor. Plus they would have the transcripts to prove it. So he wouldn’t necessarily have to go in the house to be arrested. But, whenever the men bring “items” such as liquor, condoms, drugs, etc to the house, it does show intent. That’s gives the police enough to arrest them.
 
punisherthunder said:
In some states, it is illegal to enter into any kind of sexaul conversation with a minor…
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OK, but in these cases nobody actually had a conversation with a minor–only with someone impersonating a minor.

On these forums I’ve seen several endless threads discussing oral sex. Suppose one of the participants was a minor? Are laws being broken here?

I’ve seen the ABC series several times, and the more I’ve seen of it, the more the entrapment issue bothers me. What do defense attorneys think of it? I’d much rather see prosecutions of predators of real minors, not fake minors.
 
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