Dateline NBC has an ongoing series of reports where they trap sexual predators searching the Internet for underage teen sex.
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.…
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76 - nugget
It is worth ruining a million scum bag lives, regardless of their age or career status, if it prevents 1 child's life from being ruined. I'm not praying for it, but I wouldn't lose sleep if pedophiles around the world started getting the Boondock Saints treatment.
amen
77 - nugget
wicket: the problem with your argument is that people of, say, fifteen or so are sexually mature but emotionally and intellectually they aren't, which makes it difficult for them to make wise decisions.
When I was sixteen, I genuinely believed that there was no point in living beyond the haggard old age of twenty. Oddly, when I got to be twenty, I found there was plenty to live on for.
can we get an award for the most irrelevant, anecdotal, and un-science post of all time??
Christopher: I'm a married man. Please tell me how you, as a "liberal", decided what was the "mature" age. Please articulate this. This subject doesn't particularly interest me that much. I've just seen your posts in the past. I'd figure you'd be on the other side.
What is so MORAL about setting an age? Where do your morals come from? Common sense???? hahahahaha. Who's to decide the age of consent? Where is the SCIENTIFIC method in this law??? What decides morality? (trust me I've already googled the psychiatry of this issue, give me some original thoughts)
waiting...
78 - Christopher Rose
nugget: I don't think my words of three months ago were irrelevant at all. Anecdotal and "un-science", if that's a word, certainly, but, in the context of the conversation, I wasn't going for anything else.
I don't really understand what you're getting at with the rest of your remark; I haven't decided what a "mature" age is, it tends to vary from person to person, but 15 certainly isn't it.
As to morals, you'll have to take that up with someone else. I don't really believe in morality. Ethics now, that's a different matter...
79 - Christopher Rose
Oh yes, as I've said a billion times before, I'm NOT a liberal.
80 - tina
How do I get help with a man that hangs out with my son who is 19 years old ,this man is 43 and he's always hanging out in my son's room taken him out to dinner ,he doesn't encourage my son to get a job or to go out with his friend's his own age ,he even has convinced my son not to trust me.This man is my roommate ,I am trying to get rid of him,it not easy when he pays his rent and the landlord will not ask him to leave.I even have gone to the police ,they look too see if he has a record ,he doesn't and they say my son have too file a complaint against him. He works on my son's mind I know he's doing that because he tried to convince me that my son's friends were in a gang.Please help
81 - SickJoke
This is a non-existent problem being created just to arrest people. Please show me the show where they find REAL 13 and 14 year olds that are online looking to meet with old men! Very few exist and none exist that would be as willing as the sting makes them. This is entrapment all the way.
What's next? If my husband enjoys me wearing my old high school cheerleading uniform should he now be arrested because he may be imaginging me from our time together in high school and college?
Wake up! Unless your kid has serious problems from your poor parenting abilities they aren't going to do this.
This is akin to the police giving away free drinks and than arresting him for public intoxication. This whole operation and everything like it is a sick joke.
82 - Pazoozu
Wicket, god bless you, I could not have said it better.
83 - phoenix_talons
"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?"
Those media watchdog groups are more concerned about stirring conflicts to elevate themselves in the public eye. Basically, they are a political lobbyists. They target TV shows like "CSI" & "Law & Order" because it makes them look good, i.e. their lobbying efforts resulted in sponsors pulling out support via advertising. They won't praise shows like "To Catch a Predator" simply because they don't get any kick out of it. Their job is to lobby, not to give out recognitions.
84 - Rodney Welch
"To Catch a Predator" has always made me queasy. It makes me think of witch hunts. It makes me think of Minority Report: we have, finally, entered that age where people are arrested for what they think of doing. It's a show dedicated to enticing and entrapping. Thank God it's finally going off the air.
Rolling Stone has an excellent report on this program and the creeps behind it.
85 - El Bicho
"where people are arrested for what they think of doing."
Not entirely. Many are sending graphic sexual images to people they think are teens. And I can't work up too much sympathy for these men who show up, sometimes driving hours, with the intention of having sex with minors. They should have stayed at home and relieved themselves.
Do you have any kids, Rodney?
86 - Rodney Welch
And, of course, the people who are pretending to be teens are beside themselves with joy when those graphic images arrive, because then they they've got a live one. Whoo-hoo! We get to humiliate and arrest someone! Yeeeee-HAH! Schadenfreude! It's good for the SOUL! So satisfying to see these would-be pervs put in jail!
Read the Rolling Stone story -- those Perverted Justice people encourage perverts who are on the fence about what they're about to do. There's something rather Orwellian about all these people in jail for something they were enticed into doing, and didn't do.
87 - El Bicho
Did someone have a gun to their head? They had a choice to send those messages, those photos, drive to the house. You seem to think if there had been a child at the other end, these fine upstanding citizens would have just taken them out for ice cream.
Sorry, but if you are trolling the Internet for 13-year-old girls and boys, you aren't on the fence anymore. These men are adults and are responsible for their actions. Or do bank robbers get to say, "the money was so enticing I just had to break into that vault"?
And you must be joking if you think I am supposed to feel pity for some idiot in the middle of a meth binge who makes contact with a "young boy." With all the porn on the Internet, he could find nothing else to get himself off?
You keep saying they didn't do anything. While you might not like them, laws are being broken. Why don’t you lead a charge to reverse them? I am sure potential pedophiles will be glad to know they have your support, especially since you are more concerned with them then their potential victims.
88 - Rodney Welch
Let's not get all reactionary and McCarthyistic. Just because I find the tactics of this show to be Soviet and suspicious doesn't mean I'm on the side of the enemy. I know these men had choices, I know they pursued thoughts they shouldn't have, but in the end I'm not entirely convinced they received fair treatment. I basically what it comes down is they're just fodder for public entertainment, really; watching these people get caught is a lot like what they used to do in Rome when they fed people to the lions. What's more fun than watching people meet their unavoidable fate? It makes us all feel so good.
89 - Rodney Welch
Execution, Dateline-style.
90 - mark
entrapment? no, in order for the suspects to actually be charged, there must be proof that the suspect made contact, made the first sexual move and also made the date. so all those guys you see on to catch a predator, they are exactly that, a predator. many of the predators on to catch a predator are habitual offenders. some of them admit to molesting other children, raping other children. but their admission alone isnt what really gets them in trouble. its when the victims are questioned. shotty police work is hard to find in this type of thing. they have to follow the laws and regulations just like we do. everything is recorded and anything that can constituted as entrapment will be dismissed and thats the last thing these people from pervertedjustice.com or nbc want so they do things the right way. i honestly believe that anyone who thinks what nbc or perverted justice is doing is wrong, that they themselves are pedophiles but wont admit it. we all have urges, ive wanted to harm people before and for very good reasons, but i didnt. someone who has the urge to have sex with someone he knows isnt really able to consent to it knows its wrong, but they dont care. they do it any ways because to them its an uncontrollable urge. that my co commentors is in fact, an illness. no, most of people jailed for these offenses arent just let out of jail, a majority as part of their release, have to go through therapy to help them control themselves better but the chances are, it wont do much to better their situation because they just dont really care who they hurt, whether its a five year old or a 17 year old, its not really the sex that gets them off, its about knowing just how much damage they are doing to this child. they are sadists, they get off on hurting people. and yes, they do hurt people. they manipulate their way into someones affections and make them believe that they are good people.
who here has heard about the man who was talking to an undercover police officer pretending to be a woman with children? the guy she was talking to planned on having sex with her daughters who were both under 13 years old. predators dont care who or what gets in their way, they will figure out a way to do what ever it is they want. anyone who thinks programs like to catch a predator or pervertedjustice.com should be stopped, i suggest you actually get the facts, and get some help because your lack of empathy is exactly where a future predator starts off
91 - fortwynt
Let me restate this, since some of you seem to be compltely ignorant of reality. It is perfectly natural for a male of an age to be sexually aroused, to be aroused by youth. Hey it's not like Hollywood and Television don't play on this CONSTANTLY folks...older men fatasizing about young cheerleaders, etc....it is perfectly natural for a man to be sexually attracted to a young lady....by young I don't mean 7 I mean 15, 16, 17...in other words, when woman starts developing into maturity the mind of a man is GENETICALLY TUNED to recognize this...
Choosing to block that out due to societies "taboo" of it is one thing, but to call a man a SICKO because he is feeling turned on by an attractive teenager is just plain retarded.
It is a complete joke to say that a teenage girl is "harmed" or "scarred" by this type of behavior when SHE IS CONSENTING TO THE BEHAVIOR! And then the pathetic argument is trotted out as a last resort "yes but a 15 or 16 year old girl, why physically maturing, is nowhere near mentally mature enough to be able to understand the consequences of sex with an older man, or sex at all"....I'm sorry but if this is the best argument you can come up with, I feel sorry for you....
Since when do people have to be mature mentally to have sex? I know plenty of people just as old as me who are probably too immature to be having sex...in fact I'd say that for about 75-80 percent of sexually active "adults", they should probably not be because they are too fickle to handle it responsibly.
In closing, I'll re-iterate...this show is a joke, and its a travesty. Anyone who "thanks God" for what Dateline is doing, would be surprised to know that God probably thinks its pretty shitty too....God is the one who created puberty, he didn't create "taboos" which only create and make worse the very problem they seek to alleviate.
Again....a true "child" (non puberty age) is one thing, but 15 and up PUHLEASE....to call the man that finds an particularly attractive 15 or 16 year old female ATTRACTIVE a SICKO, are themselves a sicko. Are they DUMB as HELL for agreeing to talk to someone on the internet that claims to be 15? Yes. They should be able to control these urges AT LEAST for the sake of not having their lives be destroyed....do I think that these men are always actively trolling for underage people? No, I think in most cases these perverted justice (aint that the truth) folks ACTIVELY message THEM first....it is known as fact that PJ provides what transcripts THEY WANT TO, TO DATELINE, so who's to say.
92 - Nekokaburi
First, I would like to point out that child pornography was virtually unknown in north america until it was outlawed. After that, it became more common and more commonly known. Anthropology 101 folks, when a taboo is introduced into a society, the related behaviour increases.
That said, I myself was molested as a child by my babysitter's son, and my mother was molested as a child (which I only learned recently). Yet we both have widely different views on the matter. We both agree it is wrong to have sex with children of course, but we disagree on the extent of the problem. Where my mother would see a closet pedophile leering at an underage girl, I would see a grown man undergoing a natural physical reaction to an attractive girl reaching what nature has determined to be sexual maturity.
For an example of this knee-jerk paranoia, I was visiting my parents a few months back while waiting for my new apartment to become available. (The building was being renovated, and my girlfriend and I had already given notice at our previous apartment, so we needed a place to stay for a couple of weeks.) Naturally, I had my computer set up while I was there.
About a month later, when my mom came to visit us at our new apartment, she started bringing up the issue of pedophiles and pornography and whatnot. Finally, after a great deal of arguing, I found out why. Apparently my father had told my mother that he had seen some "inappropriate pictures" on my computer, and she assumed that "inappropriate" somehow meant underage. The images were of myself and my girlfriend, taken in an attempt to undo half a lifetime of social conditioning to think that sex is dirty and the naked body is something to be ashamed of. (Funny how I learned that lesson in therapy after being molested as a child.)
My complaint about shows like TCaP is this: They make the problem seem far more prevalent than it really is, through what is called , and stir up public hysteria about an issue that wouldn't be an issue if parents would simply be parents and take an interest in what their children are doing. Sure, they help bring would-be predators to justice. They also ruin the lives of their family members who have done nothing wrong by publicly humiliating them, and sites like that one Perverted Justice, I believe it's called, placing names and addresses along with other information about suspected predators on their websites for the world to see.
Anyways, I think that trying to clamp down and make anything sexual a taboo is only going to make things worse. And for you poor bastards in the US, with your abstinence only education, things will only get worse. STD and teen pregnancy rates are on the rise, because teachers aren't allowed to teach anything beyond "This is the very basic, general idea of how it works, but you shouldn't do it." Teaching kids about safe sex doesn't promote sex. Not teaching them about safe sex promotes unsafe sex.
Well, I've taken enough time on this, so I'll leave with these parting words: Abstinence makes the Church grow fondlers.
93 - TRUpredator
YOU ASK WHY WE PREDATORS DONT STOP....cus the chances of getting caught by dateline are slim...very slim. I have met and have had sex with countless preteens since the show came out. If you know what you are doing you can scope out a place, which i RARELY do. And the laws arent THAT harsh. Look at the kid who got caught twice on DATELINE...he was out of jail in a couple days back to what he was doing. attempting to sleep with minor gets about 90 days in jail if you have a bad lawyer, its not like a sting operation is going to let the pred have sex with decoy, and if it isnt a sting and u bang the little teeny bopper bitch the battle is won!!!
94 - Pat
Paganism is not a religion. It is a cultural circumstance where people, usually men - as the authoritative symbols of society - are permitted to use their money, position, power, and influence to condone what would not otherwise be acceptable. Thus, whether pedophilia, or May-December marriages, the predator mentality is condoned in society, however disguised.
People are predators when they seek from others by undue influence what would not otherwise be warranted, i.e., what they could not get naturally based upon their own natural features.
Anytime a man forms a sexual alliance with someone half his age, to whom he could be a father, there is predator, pedophilia mentality at work, regardless of age. Natural attractions were meant to be between humans of similar age, not dissimilar age.
Putting children or women in a position today where they are able to survive better by selling themselves to a person who would not otherwise be a natural attraction is the condoning of pedophilia or predator mentality. Female empowerment seeks to disrupt that situation where they must sell themselves to survive.
Tolerance of a society that encourages male advantage for sexual or other purposes increases the probability that a society will also condone predatory acts upon children because it is the mentality or privilege that drives the crimes.
A society which allows its young to become victims of predators - at any age - is, and cannot be, a civil society because the requirements of civility (respect for the person and equal opportunity for survival) are missing.
Civility requires the ability to identify and limit predatory acts by law or by peer pressure and social agreement of those limits. Otherwise, a society invests in paganism as its chosen organized way of life.
95 - anny
Well i do agree about putting bad people away. But we also have to think about human nature. Its nature to do these kinds of things, and especially nbc should be ashamed for SEDUCING people into things im sure would not do under normal circumstances. Its your fault as a parent if you kid asks someone online to meet and have sex with while the parent is gone. they are seducing people, not being seduced. Im sure many of the nbc employees and even police officers fighting against these same people would do the same thing if put into the opposite position. Catching bad people is right. Seducing good people into doing bad things is WRONG