Dateline: Catch a Predator

[JimG]

I’m sorry, I was referring to the police pretending to be a prostitute in order to catch johns.

Thanks for the clarification. It just occurred to me that there are laws against impersonating a police officer, but no laws against a police officer impersonating a hooker!

 

[Steadfast_love]

I love that show.

JimG:

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?

On Dateline: Catch a Predator entrapment issues are moot because the perverts have to stalk and entice the decoys, not the other way around.

A common excuse for such stalking and enticing is that the pervert’s web cam accidentaly went off at the exact moment his pants fell down. Then he fell on his keyboard which randomly spelled out a twenty page conversation about underage sex. Then he drove 200 miles across state lines and walked into a total strangers house armed with beer, condoms and sextoys.

Usualy they have plenty of people who e-mail, drive-by and drive-away, but they’re never detained. If the procecutor didn’t go to the bait house and the cops showed up on his front lawn, then they’re doing things differently than usual. Must be because of Texas law?

 

[JimG]

A common excuse for such stalking and enticing is that the pervert’s web cam accidentaly went off at the exact moment his pants fell down.

Oh, one more reason not to buy a webcam!

Usualy they have plenty of people who e-mail, drive-by and drive-away, but they’re never detained. If the procecutor didn’t go to the bait house and the cops showed up on his front lawn, then they’re doing things differently than usual. Must be because of Texas law?

I think I’ve seen a couple of shows where they arrested people who drove by but didn’t stop. So apparently the crime is in the solicitation of the alleged minor, even if the perp backs out at the last moment.

 

[sea_oat]

Although there might be an issue of people gaining entertainment from something tragic, I find the show’s purpose incredibly useful.

I feel absolutely no pity for these men for the way they’re caught and exposed.

I hope you guys know Perverted Justice NEVER initiates contact with the men first. A volunteer merely sits in a chatroom (a chatroom of a city, or a teen chat, for example), and waits to be approached by the men, which is why the people they catch can truly be deemed predators.

 

[Celtic_FC]

What does everyone think of those Dateline: Catch a Predator shows? Good or bad?

I have seen a few of these, and they are very saddening. It is terrible how warped the human mind can get. I don’t really watch the show anymore, but I don’t watch tv hardly at all. They should do this regularly though, but without making it a “show” for everyone to see. What if kids watch this? This will fill their heads with things that shouldn’t be there.

 

[JimG]

I hope you guys know Perverted Justice NEVER initiates contact with the men first. A volunteer merely sits in a chatroom (a chatroom of a city, or a teen chat, for example), and waits to be approached by the men, which is why the people they catch can truly be deemed predators.

I’ve never seen the chatlogs, nor would I wish to. But judging from some of the shows, the predators seem to have objected along the lines of “well, she invited me here. I knew it was wrong, but she invited me, and she seemed so eager for me to come here.”

 

[sea_oat]

I’ve never seen the chatlogs, nor would I wish to. But judging from some of the shows, the predators seem to have objected along the lines of “well, she invited me here. I knew it was wrong, but she invited me, and she seemed so eager for me to come here.”

Don’t fall for the typical “victimizing the victim” ploy that rapists and other sexual predators so frequently use, JimG.

I’ve read the chatlogs. It’s not like there’s some sex-hungry maniac minor on the other end. The volunteers are not the ones to initiate discussion about sex, just like they’re not the ones to initiate contact in the first place. Sometimes, they try to weasel an explicit admission of wanting sex out of the predator, but they only do so to diminish doubt for legal purposes, and only after the predator has already very strongly implied his intentions.

I promise you guys it’s VERY easy to just sit back and let the perverts do all the dirty work for you.

I’m 22 now, and I remember what it was like to be a teenage girl chatting on the net. I didn’t even have to say a word in a chatroom, or put up a pic in my profile before I was bombarded with solicitations for sex from older men, just like the ones you can read on perverted-justice.com. They even all ask the same, exact explicit questions about your body. It’s sickening.

 

[JimG]

Well, I’ve never been in a chatroom, and that sounds like a good reason not to start.

I can’t imagine adults, let alone children carrying on these types of conversations online.

 

[sea_oat]

I can’t imagine adults, let alone children carrying on these types of conversations online.

It’s a good thing that you can’t imagine it, or relate to it.

It happens, though. All the time.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

What does everyone think of those Dateline: Catch a Predator shows? Good or bad?

This is a good show that serves a good purpose. They catch predators who decide to go online and seek out children for sex. You have to remember, these guys went online looking for sex with kids. But thank God they found the decoys instead. After being told they were talking to a kid, they started talking about sex and trying to set up a meeting with a person they thought was a kid. There is no entrapment going on here and this has not been an issue in the 97 convictions that this group has obtained against predators… Please visit the website here: perverted-justice.com/

 

[sea_oat]

On Dateline: Catch a Predator entrapment issues are moot because the perverts have to stalk and entice the decoys, not the other way around.

People also forget that the entrapment defense can only be used against law enforcement…not against regular citizens, like the PJ volunteers.

But yeah, nothing Dateline is doing is in the nature of “entrapment,” anyway. Simply allowing for the opportunity of a crime to happen is not the same thing as creating a crime where there wouldn’t have normally been one.

 

[sea_oat]

But thank God they found the decoys instead. %between%

Exactly

 

[st_julie]

I’m waiting for one of the pervs to pull out a gun & shoot Stone Phillips.

The host is Chris Hansen not Stone Phillips. Have you noticed that all incidents with kids under 18 is pedophelia, and not just on dateline but everywhere. However, teen prostitution is never covered by the media. Go figure
stjulie

 

[StratusRose]

I watch the show every chance I get. One poster said that if the chance of being caught on national television is a deterrant for these sick men, then I am all for it. I feel sorry for some of them because when they are caught they admit that they have a serious problem, deep down I think they wanted to be caught.

 

[JimG]

Sorry to ask, but should children even be in these types of chatrooms? I’m wondering if there is any parental oversight. It’s possible for parents to install keytrackers so they can know exactly what’s going on with their kids online.

 

[manualman]

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.

You can’t have kids with an attitude like that. You seriously want the cops to sit back and do nothing until the predators actually commit these horrible crimes and maybe a victim comes forward?

So you oppose all sting operations? How would you ever catch politicians taking bribes? Prostitutes? Drug dealers? Or do you just want special protection for sex abusers?

Juries made up of regular folk have to convict these monsters. That only happens if the intent to abuse a minor is convincing and wide ranging.

 

[JimG]

So you oppose all sting operations? How would you ever catch politicians taking bribes? Prostitutes? Drug dealers? Or do you just want special protection for sex abusers?

No, I’m convinced by the posts here that the sting is legal. But sea oat mentions above that this sort of thing happens all the time with real kids; which makes me wonder if this is the best we can do to protect kids online. What is the culpability of the internet host for these sex chats? Why would we allow kids to chat about sex with someone online any more than we would allow it in person?

 

[sea_oat]

No, I’m convinced by the posts here that the sting is legal. But sea oat mentions above that this sort of thing happens all the time with real kids; which makes me wonder if this is the best we can do to protect kids online. What is the culpability of the internet host for these sex chats? Why would we allow kids to chat about sex with someone online any more than we would allow it in person?

You’re right in that more needs to also be done with parental monitoring. We all know what it was like to be a teenager, though, and we all know it’s not always possible to keep them from doing stupid things. It’s a little more difficult in this case, as well, since teens are usually more tech savvy than adults, which develops a scenario where parents don’t catch on to certain things until it’s too late.

Also, if you’ve ever spoken to a teen (particularly younger female teens), you know a good percentage of them are soooooo easy to manipulate into talking about whatever you want them to.

If a person keeps trying to talk about sex to another adult who doesn’t want to discuss it, he/she will just tell the other person to shut up and drop it. It’s not as easy for a teen, however, who worries more about being belittled, who is more susceptible to pressure, and who doesn’t yet have as clear of concept of danger & consequences.

As far as the responsibility of the internet hosts go…people are working on it. There is a lot of pressure being placed on myspace.com right now, and, if I’m not mistaken, I think yahoo.com has closed its chat services off to minors.

 

[Jabronie]

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.

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.

Deb, If that happens again, first delete your “Temporary Internet Files.” Then run Spybot (safer-networking.org/) and AdAware (lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/)

 

[JimG]

Thanks for your comments, sea oat. I grew up in a much less dangerous time. There was no internet, no chat rooms, and no porn, except in the back rooms of shady bookshops where nobody would be caught dead.