Dateline Catches Predators & Bad Karma

Catching predators and ratings -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I frequently leave the TV on some channel, say NBC, and then go about my household chores. For common fare like Deal or No Deal, I barely pause to look. But when Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" comes on, I'm inexplicably drawn to the TV. Must say, it's like watching a car accident -- a naughty car accident if you want to mix metaphors. In this series, Dateline works with the watchdog group Perverted Justice to operate an undercover sting operation to ensnare Internet sex offenders. A young adult decoy is used to pose as a 13 year old boy or maybe a 14 year old girl. The decoy invites the chat partner to his/her house 'while the parents are out'. The offender shows up, usually in the kitchen area of the home where the sting is being conducted. Offenders will be coyly greeted by the decoy who leaves the room 'to change'. Then, the offenders must truly shit bricks when 40-something host Chris Hansen walks in and says, "Hi, won't you have a seat?"

The smarter ones depart right away. They'll be arrested anyway -- in most of the states the online proposition is a crime in itself. Some will see a camera, wire or something else that clues them in -- they don't even walk in. They also will be arrested but won't have a camera interview confronting them later. Some of them sit and talk to Chris Hansen maybe out of shock or dismay. They'll deny any wrongdoing. "We were just going to watch TV". "I thought she was 19". All for naught -- Perverted Justice has captured the full text of their online chat as well as any lewd photos sent during the chat session.



Chris wants to talk to you -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

Many of the men are married fathers; one had a daughter the same age as the purported age of the decoy. Several have seen the show before; in chats they'll say, "You're not with Dateline are you?" The decoy cheerfully says, "No!” One poor fellow had been previously caught in a Dateline sting. His sex addiction was so bad and IQ so low that he fell for it all again.

Is Dateline getting some bad Karma for itself? There have been several comments along that line. Perverted Justice is supposed to be non-profit, but gets 100K consulting fees with Dateline. Dateline is not supposed to entrap people but on a number of occasions the decoy is the first to bring up sex, violating the entrapment rules. In Murphy Texas, they had two misfortunes -- a county District attorney committed suicide when Dateline came to confront him. Also, the residents didn't want Dateline luring child predators to their neighborhood. The Columbia Journalism Review has opined that the public humiliation on national TV is in itself a punishment far in excess of an ordinary police sting.

One can't help but think that Dateline is more into ratings than moral rectitude. There is a little too much emphasis given to the salacious details and pixilated pictures of body parts and sex acts. Chris reads the chat transcripts with a lot of emphasis. There is the kind of duplicity, misrepresentation and yes, entrapment that could lead to some kind of explosive response on the part of a trapped offender. Dateline has caught itself a predator but it may also catch itself some bad Karma.

© 2007 blogSpotter