To catch a Predator

[Rollo]

God, i've been up all night watching this show. I mean honestly, these guys are so dirt and nasty. This show sickens me. Honsetly.

What are your guys thoughts on this program?

[Broncoholic3233]

Never heard of it.

Sounds like a waste of time....

[Charlie Brown]

God, i've been up all night watching this show. I mean honestly, these guys are so dirt and nasty. This show sickens me. Honsetly.

What are your guys thoughts on this program?

If the people that made that show really cared about keeping people like that off the street, they would leave law enforcement to the actual police and leave the media out of it.

Entrapment scenarios have been found to be against the law. For instance, in Jacobson v. United States a man's conviction of child pornography was overturned because law enforcement created the issue where there was none. The show itself is nothing but entrapment scenarios and anybody arrested for the show can make one HELL of a case against Dateline and the arresting officers.

[RealBronco]

If the people that made that show really cared about keeping people like that off the street, they would leave law enforcement to the actual police and leave the media out of it.

Entrapment scenarios have been found to be against the law. For instance, in Jacobson v. United States a man's conviction of child pornography was overturned because law enforcement created the issue where there was none. The show itself is nothing but entrapment scenarios and anybody arrested for the show can make one HELL of a case against Dateline and the arresting officers.

that's an extremely good point. i think i've thought about this while watching the show. i think it's very similar when law enforcement creates fake drug exchanges or when they try to catch people involved in prostitution. they send in the best looking female officer they've got dressed like she's straight out of Vegas and the guy takes the bait.

HOWEVER, at the same time... these are people who are ALREADY seeking this kind of action and before they knew it was a set up, were going into the situation with the full understanding that they were going to get some action with some under aged child (or the drugs or the prostitute in the other situations).

i would bet that most of the time further investigation would find enough evidence on these guys to legitimately lock them up for other "counts" or attempts and not even have to use the Dateline scenarios. Dateline does use law enforcement on the program.

the thing about To Catch a Predator that confuses me is that by now, you would think EVERY SINGLE person who engages in these hellish acts would have heard of the show by now and be extremely leery about ending up on the show. especially by the time they've already made it to the location... i mean in most scenarios there is always something "off" and the guy never senses it.

[CinnaMunMun]

that's an extremely good point. i think i've thought about this while watching the show. i think it's very similar when law enforcement creates fake drug exchanges or when they try to catch people involved in prostitution. they send in the best looking female officer they've got dressed like she's straight out of Vegas and the guy takes the bait.

HOWEVER, at the same time... these are people who are ALREADY seeking this kind of action and before they knew it was a set up, were going into the situation with the full understanding that they were going to get some action with some under aged child (or the drugs or the prostitute in the other situations).

i would bet that most of the time further investigation would find enough evidence on these guys to legitimately lock them up for other "counts" or attempts and not even have to use the Dateline scenarios. Dateline does use law enforcement on the program.

the thing about To Catch a Predator that confuses me is that by now, you would think EVERY SINGLE person who engages in these hellish acts would have heard of the show by now and be extremely leery about ending up on the show. especially by the time they've already made it to the location... i mean in most scenarios there is always something "off" and the guy never senses it.

Some of the predators actually have seen the show and said so during being caught.

The show has been canceled since 2008 however.

[Sparky The Sun Devil]

If the people that made that show really cared about keeping people like that off the street, they would leave law enforcement to the actual police and leave the media out of it.

Entrapment scenarios have been found to be against the law. For instance, in Jacobson v. United States a man's conviction of child pornography was overturned because law enforcement created the issue where there was none. The show itself is nothing but entrapment scenarios and anybody arrested for the show can make one HELL of a case against Dateline and the arresting officers.

Whenever I see that show, I seem to remember them usually stating what the guy ended up getting and it was extremely soft compared to most similar cases. I believe thats from what you brought up it being entrapment but instead by the media instead popos

[Sparky The Sun Devil]

the thing about To Catch a Predator that confuses me is that by now, you would think EVERY SINGLE person who engages in these hellish acts would have heard of the show by now and be extremely leery about ending up on the show. especially by the time they've already made it to the location... i mean in most scenarios there is always something "off" and the guy never senses it.

but men dont think logically when they are horny

[CHARGER$]

Whenever I see that show, I seem to remember them usually stating what the guy ended up getting and it was extremely soft compared to most similar cases. I believe thats from what you brought up it being entrapment but instead by the media instead popos

They might serve a Little bit of time, but man, the embarrassment of being on that show will be with them for a long, long time.

[jetrazor74]

If the people that made that show really cared about keeping people like that off the street, they would leave law enforcement to the actual police and leave the media out of it.

Entrapment scenarios have been found to be against the law. For instance, in Jacobson v. United States a man's conviction of child pornography was overturned because law enforcement created the issue where there was none. The show itself is nothing but entrapment scenarios and anybody arrested for the show can make one HELL of a case against Dateline and the arresting officers.

Yeah, not really.

[Alastor]

but men dont think logically when they are horny

Take a person, any person, and offer them a chance to do something they want to do, and they are far more likely to say yes than to seek it out on their own.

Would I speed on my own? Possibly.

Put a car next to me, have the driver rev his engine and make the racing circle with his finger at me, and you can guarantee I'm going to slam my car (named White Lightning) to the floor and try to smoke that sucker.

How about this one...

Take a normally honest person and put them in a room within which they feel safe with one other person. Have the other person walk out, and have $100 fall out of their pocket on purpose while they do so.

This is a normally honest person that would not usually contemplate stealing. But there it is, ripe for the taking. The odds that this person will now steal that money shoots up considerably.

That's entrapment, and yes, it does tend to get thrown out of court or result in very reduced sentences.

Further, this show - like most others - doesn't actually deter the crime. If anything, it makes the perpetrators more cautious by and large. Sure, there are some morons out there, but by and large it makes other perpetrators aware and more cautious - but it does not cure the behavior.

It simply encourages those that engage in the behavior to hide it better.

[PowderAddict]

Child predators are the lowest form of scum on the planet.

They all need to be sent to federal pound me in the you know where prision.

I couldn't watch that show cause it got me too riled up!

[Brancos]

If the people that made that show really cared about keeping people like that off the street, they would leave law enforcement to the actual police and leave the media out of it.

Entrapment scenarios have been found to be against the law. For instance, in Jacobson v. United States a man's conviction of child pornography was overturned because law enforcement created the issue where there was none. The show itself is nothing but entrapment scenarios and anybody arrested for the show can make one HELL of a case against Dateline and the arresting officers.

That was a different situation. In that case the government constantly tried to get the person to do an action. They didn't really let him make his own decision like they do on this show. The person in that court case wasn't going to do anything until government began to constantly mail him things that basically set him up and persuaded him to commit the crime. On this show they don't make the person commit the crime and the person was willing to do it before the show/police talked to them (they were willing to do it before or else they would not be looking online). There isn't really any case to be made.

[WhoDeyBengals]

When I was a reporter with my college newspaper, a member of the university staff was caught in a dragnet similar to the ones seen on To Catch A Predator, run by the same crew of people that helped bring in the scumbags on the show. It was a very interesting conversation, learning how this whole thing started and how complex their process can be in some situations.

The site is www.perverted-justice.com, and I was familiar with them before I wrote the story because I actually helped a bit on a sting a few years prior. I stumbled across the site on an aggregator (gotta love FARK.com), and I was immediately disgusted by the stuff they have to endure. But then I got to reading through the theads where you can see how the investigation took place and whatnot. Incredible. It was like watching Jason Bourn track down a bomb. I like that these people are out there.

The thing is, the guys that get targeted by perverted justice and appear on these shows have largely been successfully convicted by these chats, so long as law enforcement is involved, in most cases. So long as the target initiates the conversation and takes it to a criminal level, it doesn't matter whether it's a real child or a law-enforcement official on the other end. This is a segment of crime that law enforcement simply doesn't have the budget to fight, in a lot of cases, and how would we catch these predators otherwise? I think this is the type of crime that has to be proactively approached, because the consequences of failure are too damn high.

I hate stupid criminals, and it seems like child molestation attracts a large number of absolute morons. I mean, mental illness aside, you have to be freaking dumb to think that you could involve yourself in this kind of activity with any hope of not getting caught eventually. I love watching stupidity punished.

[Alastor]

That was a different situation. In that case the government constantly tried to get the person to do an action. They didn't really let him make his own decision like they do on this show. The person in that court case wasn't going to do anything until government began to constantly mail him things that basically set him up and persuaded him to commit the crime. On this show they don't make the person commit the crime and the person was willing to do it before the show/police talked to them (they were willing to do it before or else they would not be looking online). There isn't really any case to be made.

Perverted justice has been nailed a couple of different times for their antics.

Some law-enforcement experts have also stated that, while they appreciate the site's mission, they do not agree with some of the operators' and volunteers' practices.

In a December 2004 article in the New York Sun, Bradley Russ, the training director for the federal Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce (which has trained about 200 law enforcement agents nationwide) said that the tactics of Perverted-Justice sometimes run counter to the task force's standards. For instance, Russ said, by accepting child pornography from their "busts" to bolster a potential legal case, the volunteers are themselves in possession of unlawful images. He said federal authorities have begun considering whether to seize Perverted-Justice contributors' computers.

Russ went on to say:

"It's a noble effort gone too far," Russ told the newspaper. He also said the site's tactics can make it more difficult for law enforcement to prosecute cases they present because those cases can be considered tainted by entrapment claims.

The site has indeed nailed innocent people in the past as well, and they've been sued. In many cases, "evidence" they claimed they had simply wasn't produced - when asked for a hard drive that contained a copy of transcripts in one case for example, the group couldn't produce the hard drive, which was the entirety of evidence against someone that claimed they had made it all up.

In May 2007, Perverted-Justice was criticized in a now-dismissed employment lawsuit brought by former Dateline producer Marsha Bartel. In the filing, Bartel alleges that NBC provides financial incentives to the group to use trickery and to humiliate targets to "enhance the comedic effect of the[ir] public exposure." According to Bartel, some of the men caught in the Predator sting operations have reported that the decoys begged them to come to the sting houses, even after they had decided to walk away.

Is that really ethical? These are people that not only probably wouldn't have engaged in the act if left to their own devices, but that actually tried to walk away before entering the house with the child despite the enticement. They thought it over, changed their mind and wanted to leave. They had to be enticed back in.

In some cases they had to be tricked into getting there in the first place.

In fact, the leader of this group (despite claims to the contrary) does initiate the conversations, and he got sued for it in 2006. The leader of Perverted Justice initiated a conversation with a male. While pretending to be a female the vigilante leader asked the man several times to come to "her" house and have sex with her.

The result was that the man filed suit claiming Von Erck tried to solicit the commission of a felony. The judge agreed with the filing, but said that since no actual child was involved and thus no crime had been possible, the court wouldn't hear the case.

And sometimes, they're just plain full of crap, despite that they don't mind smearing people and going after their careers, families, and friends:

In June 2007, Perverted-Justice was criticized following a sting operation in Collin County, Texas that resulted in the charges against 23 suspected online sex predators being dropped. Collin County Assistant District Attorney Greg Davis said the cases were dropped after Perverted-Justice failed to provide enough usable evidence. "In many cases, we could not prosecute because Perverted Justice refused to answer our questions, refused to participate as witnesses, or refused to turn over potential evidence."

Not all that glitters is gold.

[jetrazor74]

Perverted justice has been nailed a couple of different times for their antics.





Russ went on to say:




The site has indeed nailed innocent people in the past as well, and they've been sued. In many cases, "evidence" they claimed they had simply wasn't produced - when asked for a hard drive that contained a copy of transcripts in one case for example, the group couldn't produce the hard drive, which was the entirety of evidence against someone that claimed they had made it all up.



Is that really ethical? These are people that not only probably wouldn't have engaged in the act if left to their own devices, but that actually tried to walk away before entering the house with the child despite the enticement. They thought it over, changed their mind and wanted to leave. They had to be enticed back in.

In some cases they had to be tricked into getting there in the first place.

In fact, the leader of this group (despite claims to the contrary) does initiate the conversations, and he got sued for it in 2006. The leader of Perverted Justice initiated a conversation with a male. While pretending to be a female the vigilante leader asked the man several times to come to "her" house and have sex with her.

The result was that the man filed suit claiming Von Erck tried to solicit the commission of a felony. The judge agreed with the filing, but said that since no actual child was involved and thus no crime had been possible, the court wouldn't hear the case.

And sometimes, they're just plain full of crap, despite that they don't mind smearing people and going after their careers, families, and friends:



Not all that glitters is gold.

All great examples of stings done improperly.

But done correctly by those with proper training and knowledge of the laws, these stings are perfectly legal.