Web Site Hunts Pedophiles, and TV Goes Along (To Catch a Predator)

[Pale Blue Dot]

Last month, the Web site Perverted-Justice.com posted news of the conviction of Sean Young, a Wisconsin man sentenced to 10 years in state prison for soliciting sex online from a 14-year-old girl. According to a transcript of an online chat posted on the site, at one point Mr. Young had asked the girl, identified only as Billie, what she was wearing. When she answered “sweats,” Mr. Young typed back that if she were his daughter, “i’d make u wear sexy clthes.”

Xavier Von Erck, the founder of Perverted Justice, says he works for his group seven days a week.
Billie turned out to be an adult volunteer for Perverted Justice, an anti-pedophile group, and when Mr. Young drove to a house where he expected to meet the teenager for sex, he was arrested by sheriff’s deputies.

The conviction was logged as the 104th that Perverted Justice says it has been responsible for since 2003, a tally that as of yesterday had reached 113. What started as one man’s quest to rid his regional Yahoo chat room of lewd adults has grown into a nationwide force of cyberspace vigilantes, financed by a network television program hungry for ratings.

<snip>

Last month, the “Dateline” correspondent Chris Hansen, who is featured on the Perverted Justice specials, addressed about 500 students at a school in Rye Brook, N.Y., about the dangers of Internet predators. One of the first questions was why the stings filmed by “Dateline” were not entrapment.

The answer, legal experts say, is that it is hard for a defendant to prove entrapment, in this context or in any other. Some states allow prosecutions as long as there was a “predisposition” to the conduct. Others require police misconduct for a defendant to claim entrapment.

One concern about Perverted Justice’s nonprofessional force of vigilantes, raised by Lt. Joseph Donohue, head of the New York State Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, is that decoys impersonating teenagers may be too aggressive, not understanding the need to let predators initiate the sexual chat and therefore not gathering chat-log evidence that will stand up in court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/technology/13justice.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=1df7a90fb611f093&hp&ex=1166072400&partner=homepage

I'm not sure how I feel about this, except that it does make gripping TV, even if I feel like I've been covered in a layer of slime after watching it.

[SusanaMontana41]

1. I'm very uncomfortable

with the press being an arm of police departments. Let the police and FBI run these stings.

[ck4829]

2. I always watch To Catch a Predator

It's good to see a sicko get his comeuppance and at the same time know he won't be harming any more children any time soon.

[UndertheOcean]

4. Shouldn't we be more concerned about treating these people rather than being merely punitive

?

[sam sarrha]

9. history has shown that pedophiles dont respond to treatment, not even castration works, it s like an

obsessive compulsive disorder on steroids.. it isn't like they go on a lark and just for fun, they cant stop, they have no control over their actions and it gets worse all the time till they kill the child.

statistically quite a few keep escalating their behavior because they are totally out of control, till they commit a high crime and kill the child to cover it up, tho some just like to kill children.. this isn't like a simple peeping tom thing.. granted some are just messing around, but they are pretty easy to sort out with simple tests..

there is a personality disorder where they commit their first sex crime about 6 or 8 sometimes as young as 5.. their first rape crime is around 9 to 10,, the first rape with a weapon about 11 to 14, we had one on parole in juvenile parole in Elko, he disappeared, i think someone killed him and buried him in the dessert.. he came back to the town against conditions of his parole because there was a 7 year old girl he was obsessing over, he had previously assaulted.

they are cereal criminals end up being cereal killers, smart, manipulative, convincing and charming.. i met the Hillside Stranglers girlfriend in Bell ingham WA.. she was convinced they had the wrong person.. i told her she was lucky she didn't fit the description of the women he like to torture and kill..simple preference..slim and blond, they are good prisoners and get out early.. till they go over the edge..

[UndertheOcean]

11. If that is true , then these people can't help it , they should be put in special

institutions rather than jails with criminals who act through choice.

[sam sarrha]

15. well that isn't going to happen.. it is a fascist institution, and one of the worst in the world, 1 ...

32 people are on parole or probation in the USA.. poverty lack of education.. just living in some neighborhoods will end you up in jail.. 87% of the people doing hard time are non-violent drug and alcohol offenders, they can be helped.. but no money will be given to rehab, because they make money off of repeat offenders.. that is why they call it an institution, an $8o,ooo,ooo,ooo institution.

[moez]

16. What kind of lunatic would want to harm cereal?

I, for one, love cereal. I firmly believe that anyone that wants to do it any harm whatsoever should be punished to the fullest extent of the law!

[fishnfla]

3. Big splashy headline in our local paper: big bust

Up here in Flagler Cty, 30 guys busted by this show. There pics are all over the front page

The episode will be shown later this spring, I think.

I'm kinda like the OP, I dont know about these methods, but maybe the attention itself will warn the perps and potential victims

[theoldman]

5. I have also watched Dateline and have mixed emotions.

I think that the perverts are stupid to begin with or they would not be caught with such a scheme. What amazes me even more is that some show up for the second time. I just don't think it should be shown on TV to satisfy voyagers. BTW, is "Voyagers" the correct term?

[rocktivity]

6. I think the word you want is

voyeur: one obtaining sexual gratification from seeing sex organs and sexual acts; broadly: one who habitually seeks sexual stimulation by visual means.

As for your mixed emotions, I think you'll find yourself at home in this September '06 DU thread.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Kelvin Mace]

7. One day, someone is going to wind up dead

and there's a good chance it will be innocent bystanders.

Imagine a fellow who shows up armed and it turns into a shooting gallery. Imagine flying bullets that take out innocent neighbors and passersby.

There are MANY ways to deal with this issue. Vigilantism isn't one of them.

[bigtree]

21. I've noticed a disproportionate number of men who appear to be foreigners or new arrivals

They could be ethnic-Americans, but, I wondered if it was a cultural thing with a tolerance of that behavior in their home country which they assume is the same here in the States.

[Kelvin Mace]

22. No, most of these guys are Americans

At least that;s my take from perusing the perp files.

[Cronus Protagonist]

8. Not to diminish the crime, but that's a LONG sentence just for soliciting

If he'd just gone out and killed a child, his sentence would likely have been shorter.

[ComerPerro]

17. especially since he probably didn't actually solicit sex from a child

since it was a sting operation. In a lot of cases its a police officer posing as a child.

To me, its like a cop going undercover, pushing someone into buying drugs, and then busting them.

[chaska]

10. We live in a sick society. We have no community and therefore no source for social....

restraint. In other words anything goes, because there's no one to tell us no. It is simple biology that a male will turn down sex rarely, regardless of age.

Sex with the too young is a fact of the history of mankind. I won't say it's good, but it is a fact. But bad or worse, it IS natural. Social restraints are needed to deal with this problem. Without these restraints man will listen to his urges, to mankind's sexual history.

It's a shame that these kinds of punitive measures are used. This is a bit draconian. But it's symptomatic of a failed society.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. I think the high ratings for this trash is also a symptom of a sick society

Sometimes I don't know who is sicker - the creeps on the show or the creeps watching it.

Ugh.

[Sapere aude]

14. Wait a minute. Most of us men would not go looking for sex with under age girls.

We are not like the dogs in the streets that hump anything out there to hump. Don't put us all into your description. You seem to think we are nothing but sex urges with out brains or compassion.

[chaska]

18. I'm not saying every man is predatory....

I'm saying this is a consistent element throughout history. It's social mores that keep this in check. Or at least it used to be that way. Now, for better or worse, we rely on the cops for this.

[Sapere aude]

13. " feel like I've been covered in a layer of slime" Why watch it?

These kind of shows are on the low end of the spectrum as far as I am concerned. I am sad that good educational shows have gone the way of this stuff.

I think it contributes to the dumbing down of our culture. Sort of like the lions vs the Christian circus given to the Roman's to distract them from the decline in their society.

[chaska]

19. I saw the show once....

I couldn't figure out who I was more disgusted with: the men seeking sex, the cops entraping (okay, judgement call) them, or the media for producing this sorry shit. Or myself for consuming said shit. Once was enough for me.

[thingfisher]

20. I find it interesting that the predator issue

has become such a television staple when dealing with random perverts who use the internet to troll for victims. However, when the fish are really HUGE the press is strangely silent on the issue. Does anyone remember the White House call boy stories? How about the Franklin cover up? Remember the Finders group tied to the CIA? These stories made a quick splash and then sank out of sight. The difference? The fish that were entangled in the net were BIG FISH nationally known political figures.

I know these stories have been featured on threads here at DU in the past, so they are well documented. I guess some animals are created more equal than others, like Orwell said.