You know me very well.

Capo, if you haven't ever seen the show, then how can you comment on it??

As for the show and its star, there is not one thing wrong with it or him, IMO. It puts a name and a face on what is turning into a national epidemic. And do you see the people that have been caught? Rabbis, ministers, teachers?? Did you ever think that perhaps they don't ONLY find their victims on the internet, and that exposing them publicly might bring forth more victims?

Do these people have a problem? Yup. Do they have an addiction? Yup. However, they prey on the young and the innocent, seducing their minds long before they attempt to seduce their bodies. How is it shameful to expose them for what they truly are? Should we hide them under a bush? Should we conduct this business in the dark? By exposing these people for what they truly are, then perhaps victims won't be ashamed to admit they've been victimized. They'll realize they're NOT alone, that they're not the only one that has been victimized in this way.

DVC, what surprises me is not your espousing such an opinion. You're certainly entitled to it. However, what does surprise me is your total disregard for the victims. Do you think this is their first time? Sexual assaults go unreported so often. Why do you think that is? Instead of concentrating on what is done to the predator, why is there no mention of their prey in any of your posts???

OMG! Sorry. Just ignore every single thing I said, ever, in this thread.

Seriously, though, keep in mind I was careful to say "it sounds like..." I'll happily be corrected, but forgive me for suspecting a show to be another moralistic, phony, Christian and fascist example of a medium full of putrid passive consumption.

Either way, though, the intention of the concept, the entire premise of the show, still remains. And I am against it. Like I said, it's a sad state of affairs when we have to make a spectacle out of stuff like this - making profit it from it, too. It's also a sad state of affairs, I suppose, that we even need a TV personality - for that's what he now is - to do the jobs that police can't. We're quick to shout "hooray" and "burn in hell" when these guys get caught, but we're also quick to ignore the severe inadequacies of the country's laws we set up in the first place, and even quicker to overlook the fact that, since this is a TV show (pray, tell me if I'm wrong in this instance), a lot of budgeting has gone into it, to fund crews, technicians, runners, Hansen himself, cameramen, sound men, editors, to hire editing suites, to pay for lunches, for breaks, to be hospitable to the crews.

Then in that case, the primary concern should not be to expose child molestors, but to make as public as possible victims' memories, memoirs and interviews, in the form of published books, written confessions, TV talking heads, and Q&A sessions. You might say, "Yeah, but haven't these people been through enough?" Well, yes, but nobody's forcing them to be brave and come out with their confessions. And I'd imagine if they did that, it'd be a helluva lot more effective and beneficial to other victims than printing child molestors' faces in the daily newspaper.

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.

Why aren't you accepting PMs?

Huh?

Oh crap, just noticed that.

Fixed.

What you just stated makes no sense at all to me. How is child abuse relevant to the exposure of pedophiles? You can paint them any way you like, but they are pedophiles. And how are these "14 year old girls" promiscuous, considering that they don't even exist??

Capo, the show is a televised sting. The pedophiles have been chatted with online with someone they think is a young teen or tween. They arrange to meet them for sex. What awaits them is Chris Hansen and a camera crew.

I have no problem with exposing these people, especially due to the high rate of recidivism. They should be exposed for what they are. And no matter that they believe that their partners are consensual, any man who agrees to have sex with a 14 year old should be punished.

As for child abusers not being tagged for life, that's not true, at least not in NY. Any one investigated for child abuse, even if found completely innocent, has an open file until their youngest child is 21 years of age. I feel that's irrelevant to the discussion, but since it was mentioned, I thought I'd clarify.

And do I think that parents need to better safeguard their children? Absolutely. But that's not always easy. You can monitor their activities at home, but can you monitor their friend's computer, or the one at the library? And what if it's completely innocent? Do the people Hansen helps to apprehend always make arrangements in sex chatrooms, or are they on MySpace and other such sites that young people frequent? Is it just one internet encounter that they have, or is it a relationship that builds trust over time?

I know this. My argument above still applies.

For the benefit of the health of society, nor do I.

But I'll still attack the show in the same way that I did.

Since my argument against the TV show hasn't been convincingly countered (and probably won't be), I'll chip in on the issue of child molestation in general now.

Everybody of sound mind, once beyond a certain (relative) age, has the ability to choose. Even Beth E, the other day, had a choice at gun-point - to hand over her purse, to fight back, to die, to run, etc.

So:

1) Child molestors at one point make the conscious decision to talk to teenage girls, flirt, seduce, and finally meet up with them. They must take responsibility for this harmful course of events.

2) Victims also make the conscious decision to meet up with paedofiles.

Now, the thing is with point '2' is that the teenage victims are not aware that the other person is a paedofile. But my question here would be (without outright blaming anybody) what is a 12-year-old girl doing on the Internet, or what is a 12-year-old girl doing in a chatroom? It's well known that chatrooms are haven not only for paedofiles, but for sexual desires to unfold, to remain anonymous, to make the decision to forget that the other person may well be a fifty-year-old man.

I didn't bother with your views on the show because I don't consider them valid, since you've never seen it.

As for 12 year olds on the internet, without knowing the full extent of what is said between the two, I certainly can't comment on that either. As for choice, at 12, can they make that choice with a full knowledge of the consequences? I don't think so. My daughter is 12, and there are certain message boards that she and her friends "meet" on after school. She has a full understanding that she must never reveal her true name, her location, the name of her school, her age, or any personal information. Although she tends to talk to her friends from school, there are plenty of kids that aren't local as well.

As for victims having a choice, that is pure rubbish. You have a gun in your face, your choices are limited.

Oh, and, btw, I received a text message from DMC the other day, and my daughter told me that I was not setting a very good example about meeting people from the internet.

That's definitely to be blamed on parenting, I think. What kind of person with any bit of sense agrees to meet up with anyone that they have never seen before and have only spoken to on a chatroom, for sex?

You notice these predators usually prey on 12-14 year old girls, the time when kids are going through changes. Their hormones are telling them what to do, they aren't thinking with their brain.

SB, to be fair, my argument against the show was its intentions, its concept, its premise. Since those things exist before the show is even made, I can still commment on them. I don't think the show needs to exist in order to make society a safer place for our children. I agree with DVC in that it's not solving the problem; it exists only to feed our bloodlust, our very human need to make criminal perpetrators and threats to our children into victims for us to humiliate. It's a good indication of how insecure we are as a species, as a society.
As part of the Internet generation, I will make a point that the Internet is a non-governed, fully open and infinitely accessible process. When we allow our twelve-year-old children on it, we're entering an unofficial contract wherein our children have access to anything they may wish. It is down to parental discretion and trust how far they push their safety parameters... if they are to be allowed on the Internet at all. Should they be? As long as chatrooms and open forums are available to them, probably not, to be honest. This might intrude upon basic human rights, to do as we please, but let's not be naive about this: as long as there are good people in this world, there are still bad people.
Whether they "can" or not is irrelevant, so long as they are allowed to. Whether a twelve-year-old is mature enough or capable enough to make a decision about that not knowing the possible or probable consequences is irrelevant, because the fact is that they do.
Firstly, her understanding is "full" insofar that you believe it to be. People cannot account for other people's thought process. Secondly, I didn't mean that disrespectfully. Thirdly, may I recommend your daughter use something like MSN Messenger, or AIM? You can only talk to people on there that you already have the email address of - ie. your friends. No strangers, as long as you don't accept their invitations. Unless your daughter is conversing with the said strangers in those chatrooms.
But they are choices, right? Beth E chose the right choice, but it was still a choice. Denying that is denying that she is human.

You got me all excited to get a PM, and now you're not even sending me one.

Fucker.

What happened to the rules on language on the boards?

I wasn't aware there were any. And words which need to be censored are. And to be fair, he was kidding, with me. Think of it like making sexual innuendos back and forth with people with whom you share an understanding.

I think he pretty much hit the nail on the head, actually. He did a better job than all of us, who have all seen the show.

What happened to you leaving or whatever?

Don Andrew!! You don't come to The BB and talk to a man like DMC like that!

Hey...it wasn't me, he said he was gone and make a big fuss out of it...and to come back and police people on board rules after what he did is a little hypocritical. But enough of that.

DA, there were many things said by many different people. Personally, I think that this is a terrific place, and find many of the members to be interesting and intelligent, usually a good read. I believe that Geoff's warning indicated that we should all try to watch the bad language, and that we should all try to get along. By trying to resurrect it, are you purposely trying to create disharmony?

As DC would say if he was here, Let's all sing Kumbaya together!

SB, where did DA try to resurrect that thread? DVC cursed to me, I understood it to be a joke (which it was)...

PS. Kumbaya, my Lord!

Don Andrew is badass.

Summary of the thread: Chris Hansen is an unrighteous ugly-souled man who has found a convenient group of pariahs he can stone for personal gain.

You are SUCH a badass, I mean the way you just defy authority by only saying what you think when other people are there to back you up really makes you the coolest person EVER.

Word of advice little one, you wouldn't have the balls to say any of that to my face. How does it feel being a wise ass on a computer knowing full well you have no balls in real life?

Apparently, but DA still felt compelled to make a few comments. I wondered why.

And NONE of it has to do with the topic at hand.

And I believe that topic is - does catching a predator on TV make you a media whore or a hero? Or am I mistaken?

Pretty good I would say.

C'mon a-put 'em up a-put 'em up, a-internet-a tough guy eh?

Give me a break, give him a break, give all of us a break. Even if he wouldn't, don't be naive enough to muddle face-to-face reality with cyber reality. It's absurd to think people are the same in both realms. And what's with the "little one"? That just makes me laugh, or cringe, or both.Right. In my opinion, a complete and utter whore. And anybody who watches it and is taken in by it is, frankly, the same.