Dateline NBC has had an ongoing series of reports where they trap sexual predators searching the Internet and targeting underage teens for sex. When I saw the highlights from the third installment of the "To Catch a Predator" series, I had several questions.
My first question is for the parents of computer literate teenagers. Are you aware of this problem? I have met so many parents who treat their computer illiteracy as something to be proud of:
"Oh, Jenny is on that computer all the time. Me, I don’t know how to turn the thing on."
Guess what? Jenny is making a date with a guy whose online photo looks like Brad Pitt, but who, in reality, looks like Larry The Cable Guy. Whether you mask your computer illiteracy as an excuse, saying that you are too old to learn how to use a computer or that you don’t want to be a slave to technology, YOU ARE WRONG.
There are parental control programs designed to help you with this task, but since most parents can’t master the V-chip, how can I expect you to access these parental control programs on your browser? More importantly, do you know what your kids are doing online or are you in denial about that?
My second question is for small town America: Are you in denial, too? The same way parents say, "Not my child," community leaders say, "Not in our town." If you think that this is a big city problem, YOU ARE WRONG. When Dateline aired "To Catch a Predator IV", the sting was set up in Greenville, Ohio. Even in small-town America vulnerable young teens are not far from danger. These predators were willing to drive for hours (sometimes even crossing state lines) to have sex with a thirteen-year-old girl — your thirteen-year-old girl. It's time to get off your moral high ground and face reality.
My third question is for media watchdog groups like the Parents Television Council. Why are you not giving any credit to Dateline for doing this series of reports? I thought your organization was dedicated to protecting our children. You have people watch hours of primetime television and inventory swear words, sexual content, violence, disrespect for authority, and other negative content. Then the data goes into your "Entertainment Tracking System." You criticize a dramatic show that features sexual predators going after kids online like Crossing Jordan or Law and Order SVU, and place them on your Worst Show of the Week list.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Purple Tigress
I think there needs to be a different type of safety and sex education in schools and perhaps the children and the parents should take them.
Being online is full of adult type responsibilities and dangers that our society needs to help protect minors from. That protection should be from the Web sites and the parents.
As a woman, you get to see just how creepy guys are that they would desire a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old. There was one talk show in LA that a caller swore he didn't know the girl was 13-years-old and that it was the best sex, but let's face it. That's pretty much denial. Uh...if you spend enough time,you'd be able to figure it out. But why spend enough time if you're just looking for sex?
And yet the radio personality and the audience seemed very encouraging because he had an excuse.
As for teachers, just think of how he was with his students. He didn't have an excuse of knowing not knowing how old they were. And remember, sometimes it doesn't end with sex, sometimes there's an STD or even death.
2 - sal m
america's most wanted also did a catch the predator segment last saturday night on fox...they showed the efforts of the suffolk county (ny) police department as they engaged and caught 14 sexual preditors who thought they were meeting with a 14 year old girl.
the suffolk county sheriff also said that there were numerous other people who didn't show up that night, but who had engaged in internet contact with the intention of having sex with the 14 year old, and that would be arrested even though they didn't show up.
3 - Tech Mom
I was also sickened by the Dateline series--I watched teh first three but I could not bring myself to watch the 4th one for more than a few minutes because it was just so disheartening that there were SOOOOOOOOO many stupid sick men who would do this. And as you said, they are from all walks--it isjust so scary to think of what dangers our kids are in. Ihave 3 kids and I am VERY aware and trying very heard to make my kids aware. I evenmade my kids watch some of the first couple Dateline pieces so they could see this was not just me--this is REAL.
I agree something needs to be done to keep kids and adults more seperated on the Internet. I do not know exactly what the answer is but I am sure glad people are talking about it.
I read something about a new company called Industrious Kid www.indsutriouskid.com on CNET that is trying to make a difference. I hope more companies do.
4 - permanentceasefire
Excellent posts!
I just read a story about a child molester in Florida who was sentenced to life in prison? In a time when you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a weak-ass judge, it's nice to hear about one who is willing to stick it to a child predator.
We need to make sure that these perverts feel pain. A message needs to be sent: if you want to physically, sexually, emotionally, psychologically damage our youth, you can expect to play "hide the sausage" with Bubba while you spend the rest of your miserable life in prison.
--DP
5 - Purple Tigress
I forgot to add that the scariest thing was that when they were doing this in a small town, they felt that the word got out among pedophiles that this was a sting. So it would seem that there is a pedophile hotline or groups and it made me wonder if the inverse would be true--if they found the situation to be true that more men would have surfaced.
6 - Joan Hunt
Congrats! This article has been placed on Advance.net
7 - a. huxley
I think you are doing all of us parents by this type of progam. My only question since i am a male, will you also show that the female is just as active in this with boys or am i wrong.
8 - Che
a. huxley: Most studies I've read show over 90% of sexual predators are male.
9 - Really now.
If you watch this show you are as sick as the people on it.
You get "kicks" hearing about, watching, and thinking about such sexual taboos.
Look at yourself. If you enjoy this show you display some of the same attraction to taboo as the perpetrators.
This is trash television at it's absolute worst, forever ruining the lives of very sick and disturbed, yet still human people for entertainment. Sex sells, and I guess now pedophilia sells even more.
NBC and Dateline should be ashamed for sinking so low. Catch these criminals, but don't do it for ratings. Absolute trash.
10 - Coutney
I think the show has great education on showing young teens on how anyone can be a predator online.......
11 - Rodney Welch
I think the show is the modern equivalent of watching a witch-burning or a public hanging. People get off on watching people destroyed. there's no power on earth like the power of self-righteous American sanctimony. You can smell it a mile away.
12 - RO
I wonder when they're going to do their little stings in, say, Compton or East Los Angeles, instead of the upscale parts of town. Talk about coward reporters & cops.
13 - Tony Figueroa
Who is Radney Foster and why is he taking credit fro my article?
Wed, 10 May 2006 04:58:04 -0500
Thoughts on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" (Blogcritics.org)
by Radney Foster (Radney-Foster) @ Wed, 10 May 2006 04:58:04 -0500
Dateline NBC has had an ongoing series of reports where they trap sexual predators searching the Internet and targeting underage teens for sex. When I saw the highlights from the third installment of the "To Catch a Predator" series, I had several questions. My first question is for the parents of computer literate teenagers. Are you aware of this problem? I have met so many so many
Original post: Thoughts on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" (Blogcritics.org) by Copyright (c) 2004 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. at Yahoo! News Search Results for jeff foxworthy
14 - Eric Olsen
bizarre - he's a country singer. Where did you see this? What's the URL?
15 - Che
Its here, but links back to this article.
16 - Tony Figueroa
I contacted him, but he has not responded yet
nionews.com
17 - Ty
Too bad Dateline is sexist on this issue...they never seem to try to catch FEMALE sexual predators...they paint the picture that only men are pedophiles...
No wonder pedophiles like Debra LaFave get off so easily...
18 - L Gross
It is sad to see these old men, trying to take advantage of these kids.What if dateline didnt do this story. These kids would be attack by these sicko. These men need help bad or be sent to a mental hospital. I would like to thank dateline for doing this story.
19 - Just a Guy
This show was on again tonight, and my wife was glued to the screen. After seeing at least two other installments I had no interest in watching more, so I got up and went to surf the net. I noticed that my wife was not happy about this, but didn't give it much thought.
To my surprise, she seemed quite angry when I came back after the show was over, and grilled me about why I hadn't wanted to see the show. I thought about it for a minute, then told her that when they put this kind of thing on TV once it's so they can tell people. When they put it on twice it's to remind people. When they put it on ten times it's just to whip up hysteria. This made her even madder, and shortly before going to bed she told me bitterly that she "had a lot of suspicions about me".
Probably this will blow over by morning, or anyway I hope so. If it doesn't then one of us at least is pretty sick.
20 - Jet in Columbus
If the Christian right would allow REAL sex education to be taught in schools, children would be better prepared against such things and this wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is.
Right now the only thing allowed to be taught is basic plumbing and abstinence. Such subjects as pedophilila and a good strategy to get out of these situations would gain two useful objectives.
1. Kids wouldn't be so curious about the subject and have to go on line to find out about it, getting themselves into trouble.
2. Kids would suspect in advance who's on the other end of that screen name.
Obviously the majority of parents are too ignorant in this "christian" country, and think that if a 14-year-old isn't taught about all the aspects of sex-both good and bad-that they won't have it till they're in their late teens or until mommy and daddy finally get around to telling them about it...
Knowledge is freedom
and in this case safety.
21 - Anne
What are parents doing to their male children that force them to grow up and become sexual predators?
22 - Christina
I am 18 and I used to not understand what my mother would tell me about the sick perverts in the world. This is sorrow that we have this many people one after the other doing this to the children. I don't have any children of my own, but I realize now that when I do I must teach them to use a computer properly and to monitor everthing they do. This is a mandatory thing for all children. We watched the series on tv today in psychology because we are studying pedophilias, and to answer a lot of your questions about why women aren't typically shown on the show, is because women tend to attack children they know. It's a comfort for the woman. The male pedophiles normally don't mind attacking children and actually stepping forth to do so.
23 - Mark Bellinghaus
Thank you Tony for writing about this--I actually watched the last show by accident and was stunned again. It makes me sick when these just freshly caught preditors find excuse after excuse and that some even knew about the show right away.
What do we learn from that?
If I had children, I would think twice of letting them talk to any strangers. How sick can people are to do those sort of things?!
That first show was the most shocking experience of so called reality TV for me! As this is not about people eating worms, but real Rabbis, doctors and even teachers and other so called "authorities" walking in to molest an underage boy or girl! The lesson I learned for my friends kids and pretty much for all of us:
"Don't trust anybody!" First the child abusing baby sitters that were caught by hidden cameras and now these monster-preditors! Disgusting and outrageous.
24 - riclandbl
By all accounts 128 of the 130 men never had any problems with the law. Most were accomplished professionals. What the show revealed was that under the right circumstances even accomplished professionals with no police records would date underage girls.
The question, however, is whether these right circumstances mirror reality.
Dateline created a fantasy these men found overpowering. But it was a fantasy that would have come about no other way. It was, to coin a phrase, a Hollywood production, not reality.
Again, based on their backgrounds, it's reasonable to assume none of these men would have run afoul of the law on their own. If this is true, two other things are true:
1. Chris Hansen manufactured 128 felons who would not have come into existence on their own.
2. Not one child was protected by the Dateline show.
Now, you may not like the fact that there are men who fantasize about having sex with underage girls, and I don't either, but what the programed showed, despite its misleading title, is that left to their own devices, these men are no threat, they're sleeping predators -- they don't act on their dark impulses even when given full access to underage kids as the teachers were.
They're well-trained dogs who don't bite. Few people mind well-trained dogs who don't bite, that's why people have pets.
The men responded to a fantasy, not reality; a fantasy created by Dateline to boost ratings and win an Emmy. That was their goal -- to boost ratings, not to protect our children. And we know this because if their primary goal was to protect children they would not have show the faces of the men or followed them as they were put in prison stripes and shackels. No need to do that. That was pure carnival freak show fare. And showing it doesn't stop one authentic predator no more than showing a man busted for dope, stop a dope addict..
To sum up, the Dateline Medicine Show flim-flammed you, which, of course, is how medicine shows make their gold -- flim-flamming folks.
ricland
25 - riclandbl
The more I think about the fun Dateline is having with its "To Catch a Predator" series, the more it upsets me.
Sure, the men they caught are sick, they each have a problem, one they've clearly struggled with all their lives. But in each of the 130 cases save two, they've managed their sickness and gone on to become productive members of society.
One was a doctor, another an engineer, two school teachers, firemen, emt workers ... Then comes the Devil (Chris Hansen) with a deal too irresistible to refuse, a deal that sends each of these men over the top.
Predatory? Who was preying on whom? Is Dateline using the term "predatory" correctly? Of course to answer this question more detail is needed, detail not presented in the program.
Chris Hansen tells us the men were enticed with erotic photos of women "who look underage" and chat discussions with other women who pretended to be underage. In other words, the decoys were the predators -- they were trying to get the men to the house.
And this is to say, although we know this for certain, we don't know what certainty what the men were doing in the chat rooms (or which chat rooms they are" so how can we call them the predators?
It was like offering a recovering dope addict free dope and then calling him a predator when he reaches for it. It's an inaccurate use of the word.
And that's also because the decoys was unlike any kids the men would encounter on their own.
Underage kids don't do the things Dateline did to lure these men into that house. They don't send adult strangers erotic photos. They don't tell adult strangers their parents are away for the weekend. They don't engage in the kind of erotic talk the Dateline decoys did. They don't do the the whole package of things Dateline did to get these men to put their heads in the noose.
Kid's simply aren't that sophisticated ...or predatory.
Thus the "predator" scenario Dateline created could never happen. It doesn't depict reality. It's not based on any known predator incident. It's complete fantasy.
In addition, police stings are done to fix specific crime problems in specific neighborhoods. You don't run a prostitution sting in New Haven, Connecticut if there's no prostitution problem in New Haven Connecticut. You don't create felons where none exist -- that's entrapment pure and simple.
Was there a online predator problem in the communities Dateline ran their sting? If not, why were these communities chosen?
And we should all be haunted by the photo of the school teacher Dateline now posts as the online companion version of the story.
The man taught teenage girls. The man had no record of any untoward behavior with them. The man had demons he struggled with yet manage to control-- again, we know this because his work as a teacher is examplary.
Then comes his reward -- he makes one mistake and Chris Hansen turns him into the most despised man in America, the poster child for pedophiles everywhere, a living, breathing monster.
Today no pedophile's face is more recognizable than his. And we cheer Chris Hansen for this? We call this kind of disregard for another person's humanity heroic?
And it bears repeating, by all accounts this guy would have gone through life without ever acting on his dark impulse hadn't Dateline created the impossible fantasy that destroyed his life.
Can we even imagine the pain his family is going through right now? His wife? children? Parents? In-laws? Can we imagine that pain and still think of Chris Hansen a hero?
Do you regard the men behind the Salem Witch hunts heroes? They believed they were doing a public service too.
Make no mistake about it, that school teacher is being burned at the stake for our entertainment; for our pleasure, enjoyment, and, most especially, our ratings.
Dateline and Hansen defend their show by reminding us the school teacher was a "potential predator" who would have had sex with an underage child had there been one at the house, and this is may be quite true. But doesn't that ignore the real question here?
Isn't the real question one of whether he would even be in a situation like that hadn't Dateline created its sick fantasy, a fantasy no sane kid could have ever created on their own?
Sure, let's look up pedophiles and throw away the key, but let's not create them for our fun and amusement ... and Emmy awards.
ricland