Prosecutors won't press charges on Predators caught in Dateline Sting

Aside from the "unsuspecting" part, which is essentially unverifiable, I"m pretty sure that's exactly what they do. That's the whole show.

There is a marked difference in the ethical implications in identifying sexual predators and possibly enabling/creating/encouraging them on a for-profit basis. Read the thread.

 

Legal, illegal, shady? My real question is, "How did Dateline sink to this?" Who is interested in watching this over and over again?

 

its the repeetition that bugs me as well. I did think his little story about identity theft and other scams was pretty good.

 

I don't know Sam....You mean I could be sitting at my computer, posting about this and that, waiting for news about a draft day deal involving KG or Kobe...and then....

It gets a little fuzzy here...but somehow i started chatting with this 13 year old about sex and all, and I thought, maybe I should head over to her house...because that's what grown men do after chatting on line to young girls about sex, and next thing ya know...

Sorry... I can't conceive a situation where I feel the least bit sorry for these guys.

 

so let's let the REAL police do that. instead of a bunch of amateurs who screw it all up anyway. and instead of turning it into a freaking tv series.

how many of these guys are real, out and out pedophiles before this? i don't know the answer to the question. but other than this situation...where the "child" says, "sure, come over and let's have sex"..how likely is it these people would be doing this?

i'm not defending their behavior. but are you a pedophile before or after you act on it??? were these guys pedophiles waiting to be caught??? or were they guys who became pedophiles as a result of this??? i'm not sure i have an easy answer for that.

 

i'm not a criminal lawyer, so i'm not sure my opinion is of any more weight than yours is. what do you think?

i don't know..i struggle with it. is asking someone who you're not talking to (for real) or seeing at all who claims to be a certain age if you can come over and have sex criminal behavior??? apparently it is. should it be? man, i don't know. i think it's strange to say the very least. but i'm not sure i wanna send someone to jail for it.

 

but what if you wouldn't have done it but for the fact that an NBC person was pressuring you to do it? Remember I am not talking about feeling sympathetic for somebody, I'm just talking about criminal culpability and the seeming aiding and abetting thereof by third parties, and on a broader level the ethical implications of profiting off of it.

If you just set the debate to "pedophiles vs. everybody else - who should we feel sorry for?" - you're going to get a one-sided outcome, but that's not what I'm talking about.

 

I think the thing with kiddie sex is, though, that due to the nature of the act, the bar should be very low.

Possession of child p*rn is a crime. Just browsing it on line is crime. You can download murders, beheadings, car chases, any number of other stuff. You can own books about building bombs if that's your thing. But kiddie p*rn -- you don't have to be involved in making it, distributing it, or selling it. Just having it in your house, or on your computer can get you arrested. Kiddie sex...now that's taking it up several notches.

So....I suppose if you distance youself from what it's about, you can make all sorts of civil liberty arguments. And they're valid. Except when you weigh it against the nature of the crime. Its the sort of thing where waiting for an individual to abuse the kid before declaring it a crime is not good enough. So if you knock on the door expecting to have sex with a kid should you actually have to go through with it for it to be a crime? Doesn't seem just.

 

In anything except hooking up with kids for sex I would likely agree with you. I haven't heard accusations that NBC was overly pressuring these guys, though it's entirely possible.

Can't imagine watching this show more then once. Once it becomes a series it does seem exploitive.

 

they're the ones who extend the invitations posing as kids.

if this is an addiction...or some weakness...it's being preyed on for ratings. i have a problem with that. i'm not convinced all these guys are raving pedophiles who are turning on their computers seeking to meet underage girls. i don't think it started that way for most of these guys. maybe i'm wrong.

 

I see it as a public service and I don't mind NBC making dollars on it.

 

I bet you are wrong. Methinks our sex drives are hard wired.

BTW when was the last time you logged into a teen chat room, ya know just to check things out? Even by accident?

My point is that this is some serious premeditation and many long hours trolling chat rooms.

 

Any bets that the buy who committed suicide since he got caught by Dateline also commits suicide if caught by the police, who are playing it by the book?

 

Not sure where you come up with "entrapment." But then again, I don't log into teenage chatrooms.

These people go into teenage chatrooms. Why else would they do that?

Sorry, no sympathies here.

 

I agree with the prosecutor that NBC's judgement became too clouded by the ratings game and it messed up a lot of cases concerning potential pedophiles.

But I don't think the principle or the initial process is wrong or unfair.

 

It was good when they first started. I think it brought alot of awareness to parents about the messed up stuff on the internet (seeing is alot more effective than just hearing about it).

 

well put.

the fact that they've turned this into a mini-series is sickening.

 

If a 18 year old college kid has sex talk with a 17 year old - is that pedophilia?

Very questionable.

I'm all for identifying pedophiles and locking them up for good. But I'm concerned how this law is being applied.

 

How about a poll of how many folks broke this law when they were 18?