This is exactly the point I am trying to make. Not all of these men are mentally ill, and it cannot be assumed from the behavior exhibited that their actions are excusable due to the presence of mental illness. Many of the men give every indication that they know right from wrong, and take great pains to attempt to avoid getting caught.
Some of the men depicted in TCAP may be suffering from debilitating mental illness. But the presence of a fetish or preference is not a sufficient hallmark for a mentally ill diagnosis, and it certaintly does not indicate a lack of responsibility for their actions.
A legal defense of mentally ill must stand up to intense scrutiny by prosecution and a jury. None of the men depicted wandered in disheveled, confused, or clearly suffering from hallucinations. They navigated to the decoy’s location, waltzed in clean and in some cases well-dressed, often bearing gifts, and nearly all attempted to avoid getting in legal trouble. With forethought. Planning. And exhibited knowledge of the laws they were breaking, and knowledge of the potential repercussions.
This bears repeating, because in most states, it’s the key question for mental illness defenses: did the accused know right from wrong?
When the chat log leading up to the arrest has the suspect saying things like, “Don’t tell anyone, because I could get in real trouble…” it’s going to be difficult for him to claim he didn’t understand the nature and quality of his act.
I never said that and consistently I have said that those who are guilty should go to jail. I do not accept the practice of entrapment as a reasonable way to get such convictions.
Perhaps I was too specific when I said people’s brain chemistry should be brought inline to what is normal. I should have said, people should have their minds altered to exhibit what is socially acceptable behavior.
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Marley23, my arguments haven’t become any weaker, because I have been consistent throughout.
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lets be clear on what I disagree with most of you about:
TCAP, Perverted Justice, and police stings to catch predators are justified, even though they have created hysteria surrounding the issue and use methods of entrapment.
These methods aren’t entrapment because the person is not coerced into committing a crime, although a crime may not have been committed at all without police involvement.
Attraction to minors is not always a mental illness, and people who are mentally ill can not be accountable for their crimes. I believe that any attraction to minors is abnormal behavior and I believe that mentally ill people can still be held accountable for their crimes and get psychiatric treatment.
Lack of self control and desire to act on impulse can not be considered a part of the mental illness. The argument being that there are people who can control their urges and some who can’t. Obviously then, one case is more severe than the other. It’s true that those who act can still no right from wrong. I am not arguing that. I am saying that a pedophile who goes out and actively seeks children is VERY different from one who doesn’t. I think that one who does act on the impulse does have a more severe problem. He should STILL go to jail if he harms a child.
Abnormalities are good. Yes, they are in some cases, but I am not talking about insignificant quirks when I talk about changing a person’s brain chemistry. I am talking about psychopaths and those with unhealthy obsessions. Possibly I left the door too wide open for interpretation. Sure one may be able to live with pedophilia his whole life without acting, but I believe if he would prefer to have his mind altered in some way to suppress this desire, he should be allowed to receive it. perhaps extremely effective methods don’t exist yet, but eventually we will.
These are things I have consistently agreed with you on, but you continue to question me about:
People who prey on children are bad.
People who molest children should go to jail.
People who have mental illness should be properly treated.
By my understanding (at secondhand from a shrink), committing an illegal action in service of a paraphilia IS sufficient hallmark for a diagnosis.
Yes, exactly. They are mentally ill, AND they are legally and morally culpable in spite of this.
The stereotype of mental illness you’re displaying here is breathtakingly archaic. Mental illness doesn’t solely mean “completely unable to function in society”.
I don’t think anyone here has defended entrapment on a legal basis, only noted that the presence of entrapment doesn’t remove the moral culpability from the actor. Even if a person is not convicted due to entrapment, it makes me happy to see them publicly shamed for the action of “going to the house of an underage person, armed with alcohol and condoms”.
The intent to commit a crime has been demonstrated in nearly every case (and certainly in every case cited in this thread, the CA court’s (incorrect) ruling to the contrary notwithstanding) by the perp’s actions prior to first contact with the cops/PJ–namely, “acting in a manner consistent with the intent to commit the crime of statutory rape”–which meets the objective AND subjective criteria for “not entrapment”.
I’m going to amplify that. Are the decoys in these cases hanging out on the Dope, or Car Talk, or any other general purpose forum? Or are they hanging out in places predominantly populated by teenagers, and places predominantly populated specifically by teenagers looking for some romantic action? I think you’ll find it’s the latter.
The reason we are harping on this is your bull-headed insistence that trolling online for underage sex isn’t preying on children if by some miracle the perpetrator happens to talk to a sting operation instead of an actual child.
The hysteria around child predators (and there is some hysteria) predated Perverted-Justice, which was formed in 2002 and become prominent later, and To Catch a Predator, which went on the air in 2004 and went off the air in 2007 (and was canceled in 2008). Megan’s Law was passed in 1994.
As far as entrapment goes… you’ve displayed that you don’t know what it is. Or else you’re saying “methods of entrapment” because you know that it’s not actually entrapment and want to say it is entrapment anyway.
That’s not relevant to entrapment, and again - I think I said this on page one or two - the alternative is that police only catch child molesters after they’ve hurt someone or occasionally find them on the way to committ a crime. I don’t see that as an appealing option.
I’m not seeing where anyone disagreed with that.
And this discussion is about ones who do.
This topic hasn’t even been addressed in this thread, so again, you’re putting words in people’s mouths.
And the reason why I have consistently held the belief that this is entrapment is because it is. The police are facilitating the crime. This crime may not have occurred otherwise.
In the case of harassing a child, that’s a little different. Like you said, they went online with the intent to talk to a child, but can you say with he same degree of certainty that they intended to find out where the child lived and molest them?
These guys are going to jail for attempted child rape, which I personally do not feel would have happened had the police not been involved. Put them away for harassment since it’s obvious they intended to harass someone, but I do believe there is a big difference from trolling for kids in chat rooms and molesting them.
Didn’t say it did. But a diagnosis/excuse of mental illness for breaking age of consent laws requires* numerous* indicators of mental illness that simply are not evident in TCAP. I doubt we are seeing the whole story in the heavily edited program, but what we are seeing does not necessarily indicate a mental illness diagnosis by any definition.
The men depicted in TCAP are very high functioning. They exhibit planning, knowledge of the law, and follow instructions clearly. Nearly all admit they are aware they are breaking laws or could get in trouble. Nothing depicted indicates a mental illness so debilitating that it excuses or even explains their actions. Read the other pedo thread running in this forum. There are numerous reasons offered as to why sexual activity with a young teen might be appealing.
*Some *of the men depicted may be suffering from mental illness. But to dismiss each of these incidents with a mental illness diagnosis is naive. I feel that because these acts are sexual in nature, you have determined that sexual deviation is in and of itself an indication of mental illness. This is simply not so. People often misbehave, often skirt laws and break rules because they want what they want.
Do you feel that impulsive teenagers who act out sexually are mentally ill? Or just older men who display an interest in young teens? Could either of you just explain why you feel that the behavior depicted in TCAP guarantees mental illness?
So far as i can tell, your spirited defense of this being entrapment is based on one case, and one judge’s decision.
There are 547 convictions based on the precise same tactics. For you to hold up one as emblematic of the correct view of entrapment law doesn’t make much sense to me.
If you are to believe that these people aren’t mentally ill, what is the alternative? That this is normal and natural? That this is Satan’s work?
There are those who believe that many of our wealthiest people are psychopaths:
I think you have too narrow of a view as to what constitutes a mental illness. That is the reason why we have such little progress when it comes to matters like these. No one believes theirs a problem, so no one looks for a solution.
Reading some of the transcripts, I have to say that if the men you’re defending really are just curious neophytes who happened (on their first visit ever to a teen chatroom) to be lured into behavior they never would’ve engaged in if they hadn’t stumbled into an insidious trap, they all show a remarkable natural talent for it. They immediately direct the conversation to explicit sex talk, and persistently try to goad the decoy into meeting them.
If the decoy were the one making sex talk, or tried to cajole a reluctant subject into meeting, you’d have a point. But these guys are clearly the aggressors and know damn well what they’re doing.
IAmError403, this discussion is going off the rails quickly. No one can deny the fact that legal minors can and often do appear to be sexually mature and therefore physically appealing. Simply feeling attraction for a young teen is neither abnormal nor indicative of mental illness. Sexual preferences are a spectrum; not a pendulum, and there is no prescribed parameter for acceptable desires. (Nor should there be, in my opinion)
Some reasons adults might be tempted to instigate sexual contact with young teens:
It’s naughty.
Young teens most likely lack sexual experience and may not recognize an inadequate or inept partner as would an equal partner.
The idea of “teaching” someone about sex seems like a good time.
Young teen bodies are pretty, unscarred and brand new.
Maybe the older person likes petite frames or small breasts.
Teenagers are often impulsive and might act out sexually in ways an inhibited adult partner may not.
Maybe the older person wants to relive his/her initial physical relationships.
Young teens are impressionable and it may be easy to control their behavior to suit older desires.
Young teens might be easier to boss around than equal partners.
The older person may sucumb to cultural pressure to desire a virgin.
And…it’s naughty.
Are any of the reasons listed above indicative of mental illness?
And yet none of the reasons randomly guessed above excuse coercing a young person or breaking age of consent laws. It is legally and morally wrong to manipulate or otherwise take advantage of someone too young to emotionally, physically, or legally consent to sexual activity with an adult. Anyone who does so is breaking societal rules, laws; they are misbehaving. Counseling is not necessary for simple sexual deviation, and counseling is certainly* not *a suitable alternative to punishment for criminal behavior.
I don’t want to take this too far off base, but what about those men who send explicit photos over the internet. Most of them volunteer to send them; the decoy doesn’t ask for pictures. Also, I object to the statement that most of these men have never done anything like this before. There is no proof of this and the fact that they have caught repeat offenders on more than one occasion indicates that some of these men have indeed done something like this before. In fact, some of the people that they caught have been registered sex offenders.
I would also like to see one transcript where the decoy begs the man to come over; in most that I have read the decoy indicates that he/she will be home alone and the man suggests the visit.
Also, having been a 14 year old girl, I know how these men work. I had an ad in the paper to babysit and it was incredible how they could draw me into conversation and lead the conversation into explicit sex talk before I realized it. This was preinternet so it was telephone contact and of course I never met any of these guys (I learned pretty quick to hang up fast) but as a polite teenager, I must have sounded like most of the decoys initially.
The thing that makes it clear that this is a crime, though, is that these men KNOW that what they are doing is wrong. There are many many opportunities to commit crimes every day. People leave cars unlocked and running but we know it’s wrong to steal them. These men know that what they are doing is wrong. They admit it online and they admit it to Chris Hanson. They are not coerced into anything; they have plenty of opportunity to not do the crime. The fact that they go to so much effort to do something that they know is illegal to me is evidence that they would have done it regardless of the situation. These girls are not out on the street beckoning guys over. These men have to lie to their families and bosses, take time out and often drive miles out of their way to meet somebody who could potentially be underage. At the very least they are so stupid that they should be in prison.
We can speculate all day about what these men may or may not have done, but I can’t believe that anyone would be able to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt that these men would have molested a child. You could prove that they intended to harass a child, but I don’t think you can prove that they would have been able to convince a child to disclose her address.
The only reason that happened is because the police facilitated it, thus making it too tempting. I hate to phrase it that way because of the crime, but the nature of the crime should not allow the state to get away with entrapment.
And that’s exactly why I think most of these men did not take it to trial, and why many of them were convicted. Not because it was proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they would have molested a child with or without the police facilitating it through a sting operation.
Bricker does not cite how many of these convictions are plea deals. Probably very few went to trial because even if you felt you had been entrapped, what is the likely hood a jury is going to care. You’re a pedophile. In most peoples books that makes you an untouchable.
Like I said several times before, I am surprised even ONE case led to an acquittal because of the nature of the crimes these men were accused of.
Ask the average person what they think about pedophiles, I am pretty sure people would try to explain it away using the word evil several times. I believe this perception is what is keeping pedophiles from seeking help.