My problem is Chris Hansen and his people are just making money off this. Have they ever found real predators who have really done this?
And the thing is, who ultimately pays? Society pays to put them in jail. Then what happens when they get out? With perv laws the way they are their are few places they can live and those often get flooded. Society (taxpayers) ends up finding them a place to live.
I feel better with the vigilantes listed above who just scare the crap out of pervs.
So what we really have is Dateline NBC making money and taxpayers end up paying for incarceration and finding them a place to live later and the thing is - no real crime was committed.
They have also had to make this show more and more realistic to catch pervs who suspect a sting. for example in the earlier years when the perv came to the house all they heard was a voice of a girl. Then they had the girl wave them down from the front door. Later they have gotten them to give their phone numbers and the actor call them back to keep the conversation going.
Wasnt there a case where the perv figured out what was up, he never actually went up to the house but went home. The cops came to his house and he committed suicide?
Sure. It took a long time to load a web page from a cassette tape. Even longer for the site to mail it to you.
Part of the problem is (and I stress part) that guys who have these feelings but not yet acted on them have no place to turn to for help. Some time back one of Dan Savage’s columns had a letter from a guy with strong but unacted upon ephebophilia. Feeling his control weakening, he went to a therapist who, as required by law, promptly notified the police. He was arrested, prosecuted for thought crime, and damn near convicted. Had he been, he would have been put on a sexual offender list with all of the notification and residence restrictions.
Savage was sympathetic and offered suggestions, but a large chunk of his readers – pretty much an anything goes crowd so long as it’s with an adult – excoriated him. It made me imagine a gay man seventy-five years ago bowing to social pressure and seeking help for teh gay. ‘Gay conversion therapy’ is generally ineffective and I’m not sure convincing someone to not diddle a teen would be any more so, but these guys don’t even have the option to try.
Here in the US, and likely in much of the Liberal Western world, the idea of an older man with an under 18 girl is seen as deeply repugnant. However, in other cultures this is not seen in quite the same way. There are active movements to condemn these practices in those cultures. But how much of that is seen as Western meddling by the targets?
Even in the US, it seems that certain segments of the population, (dare I say it) usually with a strong fundamentalist religious component, support/promote relationships between adult men and teen girls. (Roy Moore, Warren Jeffs)
I am in no way suggesting we loosen our standards on this issue in our culture. However, I’m more inclined to see this as a bigger issue than a few “bent” individuals who show up on a TV show.
Chris Hansen, former host of “To Catch A Predator” was arrested today in CT for felony charges of writing 2 separate bad checks for $13,000 each.
He bounced the first $13,000 check in the summer of 2017 and the guy he wrote it to finally tracked him down, got the cops involved and had them make Hansen write a new one last April, but it bounced too, so I guess it’s time to face the music.
If they’re looking for a 14 year old girl, they’re going to find a 14 year old girl. Even if a different person would know from the way she talks or the pictures they see or meeting in person that this isn’t a 14 year old girl, that’s what they’re looking for and it’s been so hard to find…and imagine if Humbert Humbert existed today.
In fact that brings up a good point. I think someone else mentioned Lolita as well. Yes, he could control and manipulate these girls, he referred to them as nympets, he wasn’t just attracted to them, he’s sure they’re wildly attracted to him. To him, this is mutual.
So imagine HH is around today. He’s in a chat room and a “14 year old girl” is finally talking to him. He’s not thinking it’s actually a 40 year old cop, he’s thinking ‘finally, just stay cool and I can get laid by tomorrow night’.
I assume this is some type of fallacy. Self fulfilled prophecy and confirmation bias don’t quite fit, but something along those lines. They so desperately want something to be true that even when things start falling apart, they ignore the signs and keep marching forward. Almost like that friend we’ve all had over the years that ignored or couldn’t see their new boyfriend/girlfriend’s redflags.
I believe that is a reason the show stopped, people didn’t spam underage kids nearly as much after several seasons of this show.
On the topic, one concern I have with this show is that it catches the low hanging fruit. Society likes to catch the low hanging fruit when it comes to sex offenders, but for the most part those are just the dysfunctional ones with no situational awareness.
The truly destructive sex offenders are the socially intelligent ones who work their way into positions of power and influence, and who know how to manipulate people around them.
Shows like to catch a predator just catch thirsty college age guys and guys who lack the social intelligence to avoid these scams. The truly dangerous sex offenders continue their lives unmolested.
They really should have done that. Had the shop owner work out him dropping off a little bit of money, $100 or so each week to show he’s making a goodwill effort to pay it back. When he stops in to make the first payment, the cameras can descend on him.
And, to this day, I never understood why those guys stuck around. Within the first 30 seconds they knew they weren’t going to talk their way out of it. Walk out the door and get arrested. Why sit for an interview? I suppose they still thought they could talk their way out of it.
Do they have to sign a release to be on TV? It seems to me having hidden cameras as well as a full camera and production crew in a private residence would violate expectation of privacy, even if you’re invited to the house and show up willingly.
They’re all dangerous. Someone who’s so obsessed to have sex with an underage girl that they’re willing to presumably block out all kinds of warning signs that tell them ‘This is nutty as fuck’ as they’re chatting and driving to the home of a complete stranger to, you know, attempt sex inside said stranger’s home with a 14-year-old…that’s a person in need of a head examination. They do this knowing that there’s at least a chance of an encounter with an enraged pistol-waving father, or a swarm of officers. And yet their obsession overrides all sense. It’s not a stretch to assume that a certain subset of this population would take it a step further and do real harm to a child, be it abduction or worse.
I actually thought about including the booze and condoms into that line.
For me, the condoms was always what sealed the deal. They don’t even have plausible deniability at this point. I remember a lot of those guys would tell Chris they were actually going to try and talk this girl out of what she thought he was coming here to do. That all goes out the window when you have condoms that you clearly bought a half hour ago in a shopping bag with some beer.
