They're creating the crime...and most of the fake kids are NOT 12.

In fact the only reason the show tries to push the age down even as low as 12, is because they want to sensationalize things more. The crime is 17 or 16, but the lower they set the age bar, the more sensational.

They set up a chat with some horny, pathetic dude...and then they engage in dirty flirting.

For any underage girl out there who is sex-chatting some 40 year old dude online, and inviting them over to their house...that girl is already having sex, or having access to sex by other means...and the internet "predators" is the least of their problems.

This show is protecting NOBODY.

These are not the "predators" we really need to be worrying about. These are not "masters of seduction," or organized serial killers, or "collectors." Have you listened to these guys being busted? They're a joke. I am not really even convinced we should be filling up expensive jail space with their worthless pointless clueless bodies. Yeah, they may end up having sex with some underage girl that invites them to their house, but the underage girl that would invite THOSE losers to their house, are GONNA be having sex with SOMEBODY inappropriate, whether it's the neighbor or the leather jacket wearing drug dealer down the street. That particular underage girl having sex with people is clearly the LEAST of the girls's problems. They're already clearly full of problems.

As far as we know, many of these loser guys would most likely back out at the last minute anyway... if actually faced with a 15 year old kid, as opposed to dirty-chatting some big boobed, innocent, but curious fantasy lolita over the internet. It's manufactured crime for the most part, created for people's lowest, voyeuristic, vicarious pleasure, pure and simple.

This kind of law enforcement is like shooting fish in a barrell. Stupid.

Nobody can ever talk realistically about this damn topic, because their goddamn buttons get pushed, and any kind of realistic talk about the sexual behavior and impulses of teenagers, even pre-teens, gets a response like that...

"Oh you're blaming the victim."

"Oh you're justifying their behavior."

Nobody is trying to justify anything.

These people are obviously criminals.

They are a problem.

Are we catching most of them? No.

Are we protecting kids with these kinds of stings? Not a lot.

Are there better ways to protect young kids? YES.

Are there far worse people we should be focusing our attention (and hard spent tax dollars for imprisonment) on? HELL YES.

This type of distorted focus on this type of criminal is purely based on irrational fear, and panic over our inability to keep the innocent 100% SAFE. It's the same moronic, non-logical mentality that pushes people to wiretap everybody...or to make sex offender registries for anybody who commits a crime that has the word "sex" in the title, including statutory rape between minors.

Because we feel so helpless, some people feel the irrational need to pick off the easy to catch bad guys who bear a sort of resemblance to the predators we fear...and heap inordinate abuse on THOSE PEOPLE...for all the predators we could never catch...and all the 6 year old kids who were killed and murdered in unsolved crimes.

Catching these pathetic losers (who are hardly "criminal masterminds" ) and making them register for life, and waste millions in police resources...

It's catharsis. And it makes YOU feel better.

But it doesn't make our kids one damn bit safer.

Maybe we should focus our money and time on things that REALLY make our kids safer...like better monitoring of our own kids' online habits...and more education and supervision for our kids. I know it's not as fun as lynching a 60 year old man with a cheerleader fetish would be, but it might do more good.

The problem is when anybody tries to say anything logical or moderate about this topic, people just go into snap-judgment mode and label it as "blaming the victim" or "making excuses" for the bad guys.

As emotional as people are about these kinds of people, and as unsafe, and as vulnerable as people feel about their children...LOGIC seems to just go out the window.

Parents BEAT their children within an inch of their lives... (many times more likely than STRANGER rape) yet nobody wants THAT person to "register for life"...

But some criminal fondles a 14 or 15 year old girl, and HE gets a LIFE SENTENCE of registering everywhere they live?

And it costs RESOURCES to track all these people...MONEY...

We want to throw all of our fears and anxieties and helplessness on one (deservedly) unpopular group of people, and though they are bad people... they are NOT whom you should be fearing.

If your kid is raised right, how could ANY of these online losers on Chris Hansen's show pose a danger?

Regardless of who initiated the "sex talk," the fake girl is agreeing to meet them.

The show accomplishes very litlle. It's moden day stoning.