Poll: Morality of To Catch a Predator.

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Jeronus

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satsujinka said:
Furthermore, I'm not aware of whether or not such solicited sex is even harmful to the minor in question. After all, the minor did agree to it, but this touches on whether or not you think minors should be allowed to make their own decisions. I think minors should be allowed to make decisions, even bad ones. In my mind, family is there for exactly the purpose of supporting a minor when they make a bad decision.
A family should also prevent kids from making stupid decisions. A minor's bad decisions affect the whole family. Minors are not allowed to do things because they aren't able to think of the consequences. They are still in that phase of life where they pursue pleasure without thinking of what happens afterward. Also adults can easily take advantage of minors who are too naive to see through the lies they give them. Minors should be protected from bad decisions, not allowed to ruin their lives just to learn a lesson.
 

satsujinka

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Jeronus said:
satsujinka said:
Furthermore, I'm not aware of whether or not such solicited sex is even harmful to the minor in question. After all, the minor did agree to it, but this touches on whether or not you think minors should be allowed to make their own decisions. I think minors should be allowed to make decisions, even bad ones. In my mind, family is there for exactly the purpose of supporting a minor when they make a bad decision.
A family should also prevent kids from making stupid decisions. A minor's bad decisions affect the whole family. Minors are not allowed to do things because they aren't able to think of the consequences. They are still in that phase of life where they pursue pleasure without thinking of what happens afterward. Also adults can easily take advantage of minors who are too naive to see through the lies they give them. Minors should be protected from bad decisions, not allowed to ruin their lives just to learn a lesson.
My point is that how is someone supposed to learn what a bad decision is if they aren't allowed to make bad decisions. I doubt a single decision could ruin anyone's life so long as their family is there for them. There to put things in perspective, to give a home, food, and acceptance. Besides, I would argue that many adults are no better when it comes to pleasure and thinking of consequences.

Just because a decision will affect the family doesn't mean the family has the right to take away a minor's choice. A family can deal with just about any consequence an individual can inflict on themselves, if the family has the main goal of sticking together and supporting one another. Furthermore, I would argue that a family following such a principal wouldn't encounter much in the way of horrible consequences. As it's members learned from a young age how to make decisions.

Lies are something that most children understand by the time they are 7. I see no reason why you couldn't incorporate a cynicism of age based authority into the development of a child, which would vastly undercut any adults attempting to take advantage of them. But of course, this goes back to my main point. It isn't strangers on the web that do the most damage, it's family members and friends of the family that do the most damage. And they do what they do vastly because it was done to them. It's a vicious cycle that I'm not sure how to break, but before we go hunting down internet creeps we need to break the cycle (as I'm willing to bet that the internet creeps are created by similar circumstances as any other molester.)
 

rockyoumonkeys

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Kortney said:
Enticing that man to commit a crime is immoral. Putting it on television is immoral.
I'd say that. Of course they're bad people anyway, but you're actually encouraging them to commit a crime. I've never really watched the show, just clips on youtube, so I don't know how aggressively they try to convince these guys to show up.
 

quiet_samurai

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Kortney said:
quiet_samurai said:
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.
And I... never said that you said that they said that.

The fact remains, these people went to these houses with full intention of raping a child. Attempting to commit a crime or having the intent to commit a crime is still a crime in itself, hence attempted murder, attempted robbery, posession with the intent to distribute. None of these people are charged with the actual crime of rape or molestation, just the intent to do so. And in all honesty, I would rather have them booked and charged, in this very manner, then waiting for them to actually commit the crime. And besides these people are just being charged, not found guilty or sentanced in a court yet. Maybe some of them are actually mentally ill, and if that is the case then they will most likely get some sort of rehibilitation. But do you really think all of them are? I think not.

Like I said before, people who would never ever even consider the act of child rape could never be talked into doing it...ever. It woulld be the equivalent of being talked into switching your sexual orientation.
 

sdMario

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I can see it both ways.

On the one hand, it seems like entrapment, dangling the bait in front of possibly mentally unstable members of society, to record a programme that is primarily for entertainment.

However, the majority of these men come across as if they would be very likely to commit these crimes when not being coerced by a decoy, so "To Catch a Predator" could also be protecting innocent victims that could otherwise have been targeted.
 

JoJo

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I don't think it would be immoral for the police to carry out this kind of trap... but putting it on a TV program is just insensitive and wrong. Justice should be private.
 

The Rookie Gamer

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Kortney said:
Soylent Bacon said:
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.
Wait, did they arrest the guy? Shouldn't he get help?
 

Micah Weil

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I don't even question the morality of the Chris Hanson show anymore. It's like arguing religion.
I'd say it's actually the SUBJECT of the show that we should be questioning the morality of - specifically, the jump to ruin anyone that so much as looks at a child with a quirked eyebrow. Yes, people that prey on children are bad, but at what point does it stop being reasonable?
 

Slycne

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This show might ride the line of entrapment, but they take careful steps to avoid it. I would urge those of you to actually read up what I provided below. Because they do not initiate the coercion nor is there a snap decision required in leaving your house and driving somewhere, you don't see these cases thrown out for entrapment like say if an undercover police officer offered to sell you some drugs on the street.

My only question how they get these people to agree to letting them air the footage or if they are somehow allowed to run it without their consent?

ENTRAPMENT
A person is 'entrapped' when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case.

However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the Government agents merely provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity for the person to commit the crime. For example, it is not entrapment for a Government agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informer or other decoy, to engage in an unlawful transaction with the person. So, a person would not be a victim of entrapment if the person was ready, willing and able to commit the crime charged in the indictment whenever opportunity was afforded, and that Government officers or their agents did no more than offer an opportunity.

On the other hand, if the evidence leaves a reasonable doubt whether the person had any intent to commit the crime except for inducement or persuasion on the part of some Government officer or agent, then the person is not guilty.

In slightly different words: Even though someone may have [sold drugs], as charged by the government, if it was the result of entrapment then he is not guilty. Government agents entrapped him if three things occurred:

- First, the idea for committing the crime came from the government agents and not from the person accused of the crime.

- Second, the government agents then persuaded or talked the person into committing the crime. Simply giving him the opportunity to commit the crime is not the same as persuading him to commit the crime.

- And third, the person was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke with him.

On the issue of entrapment the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped by government agents.
 

ironlordthemad

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I don't see anything wrong with this show to be honest. If someone is caught by this show it means that they had, in some way, the idea of going after younger people online. In fact it's lucky that these people act on the impulse and end up getting caught by this show instead of going on to molest some child.
 

Lazarus Long

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These guys were on the interwebs looking for kids to meet and have sex with. If the PJ decoys weren't there, they would have found a real kid. To meet. And have sex with. This is not entrapment. The decoys don't go looking for people to somehow trick into wanting to have sex with kids, they just make a profile claiming to be a kid, and wait for someone to hit on them.
 

quiet_samurai

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For everyone who is categorizing this as a form of entarpment, sorry, but no its not.

Entrapment is when you are forced to commit a crime under some form of duress and have no other choice but to do so, or put into an impossible circumstance by law enforcement with the only way out being criminal activity.

These people were not entrapt into doing anything, they made the choice, they were given the promise of sexual contact with a child and they CHOSE to capitalize on the situation. They could of just stayed home, or never entertained the notion in the first place, but sadly they didn't. They are the architects of their own demise.

Know what you are talking about before you post.
 

thevillageidiot13

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Sep 9, 2009
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Definitely morally wrong. People are entitled to a certain degree of privacy, and this show brands people as pedophiles before they ever set foot in court.

Employers will never hire them. They'll never have jobs. It'll be a giant stamp on their foreheads for the rest of their lives. "Pedophile." Before they ever even set foot in court.

If they *are* guilty, let them be charged with the crime, found guilty, and be punished accordingly in a proper court of law. If it should turn out that they're not guilty, then all you're doing is humiliating an innocent man on television, and turning the producers and editors of the show into the real jury.

Another victory for mainstream media. Whoop-de-doo.


As for using deception to capture criminals and its moral implications, it depends. If the suspect is clearly the more aggressive one and is being a hound, then I'm all for the undercover thing. If the undercover cop is the aggressive one and basically initiates everything, then I'm pretty sure that's entrapment.
 

etherlance

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This is just like the Jerry springer show

They hype up all of the people before they get onto the stage in order to instigate stage fights and get ratings.

I'm not saying these guys are angels, most likely they really do mess with little kids and thus should be castrated, but what I'm saying is that the show seems to find these guys AWEFULLY easily don't they?
 

Eternal_Lament

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quiet_samurai:
"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."
(Edit: Sorry, for some reason it wouldn't let me actually quote the post)

Perhaps I should clear this up. When I was referring to the peer presure element, I was referring to all crimes, not just child molestation. The OP's question was whether or not it is wrong to entice people to commit a crime, not is it wrong to entice people to molest, and as such I responded in kind. The peer presure thing was more for when authorities have to badger someone in order to commit the crime, such as paying for sex, paying for drugs, or selling drugs.

I don't disagree with you statement, in fact I agree with some parts. A person is likely to be pressured (rather then thinking a long time on the matter) into paying for sex or buying drugs at least once, but a pedophile is more likely to think alot about molesting a kid rather then suddenly thinking it would be a good idea.

I just thought I'd clear up what I was getting at, sorry if I confused anyone.
 

quiet_samurai

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Slycne said:
My only question how they get these people to agree to letting them air the footage or if they are somehow allowed to run it without their consent?
It's because criminal records and proceedings are considered public, at least in the USA. A person being charged on on trial does not have the right to privacy in the matter. Not for humiliation reasons, but to ensure fair due process.