Poll: Morality of To Catch a Predator.

[Dags90]

So you're saying a pedophile doesn't deserve to be convicted as a pedophile if he was enticed to do an illegal act?

If I'm understanding that correctly, this approach would free a lot of people from responsibility for crimes. If a pedophile's crime is forgivable because he was lead to do so by a decoy pretending to be a minor, then a pedophile's crime would also be forgivable if he was lead to do so by a very flirtatious, genuine minor who convinced him to do something illegal he wouldn't have done otherwise. I don't believe that being enticed relieves someone of moral responsibility.

That's not what people are suggesting. It's a specific thing called entrapment when police officers coerce or deceive people into breaking the law and it's usually illegal. It pretty much boils down to "Those in the business of catching people breaking the law should have no business in enticing or coercing to break those laws for the purpose of arresting those people."

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

It does smell of entrapment, to be honest.

I wish they just stopped at publicly shaming them on national television rather than actually arresting them. It gets the message across more and prisons wouldn't be as clogged up.

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

Who cares these people were going to go fuck children, we need to stop protecting these pieces of shit while the honest people of the world get fucked by the same system that is suppose to get rid of these animals.

 

[Kortney]

I don't believe that being enticed relieves someone of moral responsibility.

I think it does to an extent. A few people on the show have been quite visibly, for a lack of a better word, mentally retarded.


Enticing that man to commit a crime is immoral. Putting it on television is immoral.

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

If you can be enticed to commit a heinous act like that you are not a man but a animal and deserve no rights.

 

[AugustFall]

He was on the chat room talking to underage girls/boys whatever. He was through the looking glass.

Ask yourself this: What if it wasn't a fake kid he was talking to online? The situation would be the same but he would have gotten away with it.

Edit: If you've seen the show you know that they don't ask the perp to show the "kid" pictures of their genitalia. They don't say, "Hey let's have sex." These guys are in the chatrooms looking for underage kids, face it.

 

[manaman]

Note: This thread is a discussion of the NBC program "To Catch a Predator". For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it involves police posing as young girls online and enticing men to come to a house. Once the person arrives at the house, he is greeted by cameras and eventually arrested by police.

I was recently watching To Catch a Predator on the internet out of curiosity when something stuck me.

Is this show morally right?

Now, for the most part - I believe that the show does arrest and weed out dangerous individuals. But sometimes I get the sense that they have been conned into doing it.

Take a look at the gentlemen in this video:


Would they of done this if it wasn't for the show enticing them to do so?

Discussion: Is the act of enticing people to commit a crime morally wrong?

Soliciting sex with a minor is illegal, it doesn't matter if it actually was a kid.

Now I don't agree with victim-less crimes, this being one since it wasn't actually a kid.

Yeah wait a minute... isn't this technically entrapment? Considering i'm looking at the definition of it right now for a stupid research paper. Are they arrested after chris hansen makes them take a seat over there

It's only entrapment if they coerce you into it. This might seem to skirt that, but if they don't propose meeting, and they don't force them to drive over it's hard to actually say they were coerced.

I did hear them say that the decoy suggested meeting for sex at one point. I don't approve of that.

 

[thedeathscythe]

If they even thought about doing it, no matter the reason (depression, curiosity, loneliness who knows) then they need help. Maybe they were enticed, and they wouldn't have done it otherwise, but there was that seed of a thought and imo, it's better that they're locked up and given treatment (they don't just throw em in jail and that's it, they try and help them, I don't know how). Many of them are very experienced(?) at it and say it's their first time but you can kind of tell that they've probably done that at least once or twice before.

 

[Mcface]

Google "perverted justice" they are the group that does most of the work. they also make ALL of their transcripts available. in the overwhelming majority of the cases, all the "12 year old" does is say "12/f/Florida" etc. the guys go on for hours about sexual stuff, while the decoy mostly goes "yeah. cool. sure. yeah" read them and you will probably rethink your answer.

Remember, these are not 18 year olds being baited to have sex with 15 year olds. These are 40 year old men trying to sleep with 11 year old girls. Even if they handed it to them on a silver platter, its still fucking sick and they deserve every second of it.

 

[Dags90]

It doesn't matter if they're falling for bait, because they essentially have broken the law. Let's say I give you a gun, and the option to walk away or kill someone. I tell you there will be no consequences to you if you pull the trigger, but that the gun is loaded, and obviously deadly to the person. I do not tell you that I am an actor working for the police. The gun is actually empty. If you pull the trigger, you are a murderer because you committed an act with intent to kill someone by your own free will, even if you were baited to attempt to kill someone, but never ended up killing them.

The same applies to these pedophiles. They are flirting, talking dirty, and eventually driving to these decoys' houses, pulling the metaphorical trigger that would lead to the crime of them having illegal sex. This makes them sexual predators. Even if they were deceived into the situation, they were not forced to make the choice. They were offered a choice to either have sex with a minor or ignore the minor, and they chose to have illegal sex.

What if the gun was loaded? Would it be alright then? I mean, you'll probably get me in time, you just have to wait for me to hold it at someone. The only real difference in the scenario is that one has "live bait". From the standpoint of "policing enticing people to commit crimes" its the same situation.

Another moral gray spot is that the organization that does this work is paid by MSNBC. They're essentially paid to entice people to do this because it makes for good ratings. I find that really, really distasteful.

Maybe they were enticed, and they wouldn't have done it otherwise, but there was that seed of a thought and imo, it's better that they're locked up and given treatment (they don't just throw em in jail and that's it, they try and help them, I don't know how).

And we have our first thought crime supporter.

 

[Brotherofwill]

I think it's immoral. I also think it's quite sad that anyone would willingly watch such a show. I hate TV.

They are now allowed to choose who they marry

:O

 

[PeterDawson]

I can see how it can seem like a con, but as long as they make it clear that the person is definitely a predator then its fine. If the person isn't a predator and didn't realize the cop was pretending to be underage I could see a problem. So as long as it focuses on catching people who are definitely predators then I don't see the problem. Well, except that they're being plastered on TV, which can ruin one's rep, and is it moral to forever deem a person a predator? It can get them blamed for something that isn't their fault. I'm really starting to backpedal on this...

Okay, let me put it this way: I'm fine with predators being busted, but as long as they're not people who think they're talking to someone who they thought was older and legal, turns out they're not and by that point they think they're so in love they're willing to chance it. Society won't like it, but it was manufactured. Also seeing them on TV is a bit of a problem.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

SHIT!​

Morality is lost on me. All and all it's just a meter of how good or bad something is and I do not believe in good or bad.

 

[crudus]

You could argue it is entrapment I guess but I have never really seen how it was done. There is a difference between the potential criminal coming onto the "child" and the child just saying "wanna sex, lol?" out of nowhere. I imagine what happens is some form of the former with the latter happening later.

 

[Tdc2182]

Well, it is a very shallow way to get show views, but then again, that's pretty much what television is these days.

 

[Hatchet90]

The show doesn't entice the "victims". The show simply poses itself as a 12 year old and the victim does the rest. It's illegal to convince the victim, and legal vice versa.

 

[ShaqLevick]

Seriously, I mean lets put it into context. To catch a predator is specifically aimed at catching adults attempting to have sexual encounters with minors, whether they were provoked or not is completely irrelevant! It's not like these conversations enticed said adult into changing sexual preferences... Although I haven't seen many episodes, so it's hard to say what the true intent of certain visits were, but preying on minors is simply wrong! You know what's really a moral gray area? Undercover cops posing as prostitutes, because what occurs between two consenting adults is nobodies business, and there's no moral ambiguity there! If anybody was to have certain urges (pedophilia) it would be wrong for me to judge them for their illness, that is as long as they see the harm and evil that certain actions would result in. To resist and rise above said urges is commendable, but to those without the strength of character to resist doing harm, well lets just say that represents a segment of the population that we don't need on the streets (And if I had my say 6 feet under).

So I salute you Chris Hansen, for getting criminally sick predators off the streets.

 

[quiet_samurai]

Note: This thread is a discussion of the NBC program "To Catch a Predator". For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it involves police posing as young girls online and enticing men to come to a house. Once the person arrives at the house, he is greeted by cameras and eventually arrested by police.

I was recently watching To Catch a Predator on the internet out of curiosity when something stuck me.

Is this show morally right?

Now, for the most part - I believe that the show does arrest and weed out dangerous individuals. But sometimes I get the sense that they have been conned into doing it.

Take a look at the gentlemen in this video:


Would they of done this if it wasn't for the show enticing them to do so?

Discussion: Is the act of enticing people to commit a crime morally wrong?

Doing so in order to find out if a person would commit a crime doesn't seem that bad. After all, while criminality isnt a disease that can be easily cured (Edit: Criminality in that of itself isn't actually a disease), this process can be used to at least inform the person being enticed of the dangers that come with actually going through with a real crime. Furthermore, in context with "To Catch a Predator", it is important to note that some of these caes were people who have done something similar before (some people have been on the show more than once, in different episodes no less) so the argument that they wouldn't have done it if they weren't enticed isn't always the best defence.

That said, entcing a person to commit a crime and then aressting them for it seems a little morally questionable to me, especially when the authorities have to contantly badger them and pressure the person into doing the deed. It's like the person is being arrested more for even considering commiting a crime rather than actually trying to. And that just seems silly to me.

I disagree with both of you. It's not like there is a real peer pressure element online, especially in an anonymous chat room. And it's also nothing like a lot of other crimes where police use deception, like an undercover prostitute or drug dealer. Usually these are the types of crimes involving trickery by police and it involves an adult making a poor choice on their part. Key word adult. When you have people using deception to catch POSSIBLE CHILD MOLESTERS then you are dealing with an entirely different thing altogether. People may try drugs once, or pay for sex once, and that can be considered....sort of, normal. But nobody in their right minds wakes up and says, "hey you know, I think might just try... this once... taking sexual advantage of a minor." People that do these types of things are going to do them no matter the medium they use to do so, whether it be the internet or a van with tinted windows and promises of candy or a trip to Cambodia. A normal sane human being would not even tempt on the idea of even being coerced into doing so,no matter how good and deceptive the people on this program are.

This is the third time I have said it, but... if you can give me the pro-side to the argument of child rape (even falsely promised and even consented), then I will further discuss the matter with you.

 

[Kortney]

But nobody in their right minds wakes up and says, "hey you know, I think might just try... this once... taking sexual advantage of a minor."

...

Never said they did.

The show prays on people who aren't in the right mind set. Look at the video I posted earlier down the bottom of the last page.

Just because the people on the show are sick, confused, retarded or just plain not normal doesn't mean you get to trick them and put it on the television.

 

[Mr Godfrey]

It's entrapment. I'm all for catching predators, and this method works sometimes; however, It can also lead to the wrong people being put behind bars and having a little red mark on their record for the rest of their lives.