To Catch a Predator: Creating Crime

[The Don]

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Somebody please pie chris hansen.

the reason there are so many pervs in the US is due to all the sexual repression...loosen up people

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QFT

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lmao. agreed. This show may be the sickest thing on TV and it has nothing to do with the horny pervs.

[Poofler]

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(descriptive opinion) It seems to me that any attempt by the government to define "newsworthy" or to effectively create two classes of speech would be a direct violation of the first amendment.

(normative opinion) Journalists don't (i.e. should not) get any special rights or privledges. This includes subponea shield laws &c. They are not more equal people.

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Privacy rights have been inferred from the Constitution, in various amendments. There is no stated right. It's fairly nebulous and is usually extended only as far as a specific case needs (Griswold, Roe, etc). There are volumes on privacy law, which is still very young. These various zones of inferred privacy and publicity rights have been pieced together over time, and compelling state interest has been a factor in deciding whether or not to infer a right. Balancing tests. Courts have neglected to invoke certain privacy rights in "newsworthy" situations for "compelling state interest" reasons quite frequently. Determining if something is "newsworthy" certainly classifies speech in some ways. But we do this all the time. Lots of speech is not protected under certain circumstances, like when it violates your inferred privacy rights. Anyway, none of this is an absolute. The law is so tangled that the media tries to obtain releases whenever they can. I agree with Copernicus about this specific show, I wouldn't define their actions as "newsworthy" with the repeated installments. To me it better fits the legal defintion of entertainment where a lot of privacy/publicity rights exist. Journalists sometimes hide behind credentials when not really acting as journalists, IMO.

As for the normative opinion, I agree with shield laws. Journalists often get information by promising anonymity. Some are willing to go to prison to uphold their word. Others aren't. If that right were guaranteed, you have more anonymous "tipping". Given the inefficiencies of our legal system and regulatory agencies, sometimes the media is the only way expose very harmful actions by some entity. Including your hated and crooked government. Think Enron or Watergate. Shield laws have their drawbacks too, but I like the benefits more from a public interest perspective. Empty language to an ACer I suppose, but not to statists.

[morphball]

I don't know how I feel about these stings, but I have a problem with stuff like this...

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I don't know your age or your parental status. If you are young and without kids, I can understand why you might believe that 16 is OK. But, 16. yr. olds lack the abilty to make sound decisions.

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Decisions have consequences, whether you make them rationally or not. The fact that you are 16 and maybe not as wise as an 18 year old should not excuse you from those consequences.

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Developmentally, they are not capable of entering into an adult relationship as an equal. There is solid research that actually shows, via MRI, that teenagers' frontal lobes, responsible for impulse control, planning etc., are not fully functional.

As a step-parent, I raised two kids (boy and a girl) through their teen years. I can tell you that neither kid at 16, nor any of their friends, were wholly (physically, mentally, emotionally) mature enough to enter into a sexual relationship with an adult.

Would you really be OK with some guy my age (38), buggering your 16yr. old daughter or son?

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What is the difference between having sex with an adult versus having sex with another 16 year old? If these kids are going to be having sex, why are we getting into peoples' business? I would be bothered if a 38 year old were buggering my kid, but if my kid wasn't being raped, I see no reason that 38 year should be imprisoned. Please explain to me why the emotional ramifications will be different? And much of the regret and shame these kids feel after the fact, I think, is caused solely because we are so disgusted by that, and because we make them feel as if something bad and awful happened, and that they were so victimized, the child chooses to believe it. I think this is of the same ilk as a "self-fulfilling prophecy"--like where teachers believe a certain kid has no future, and the kid starts to believe it as well. I am also reminded of instances where children started to believe they had been molested, when in fact they had not, because their caretakers wanted them to so believe.

These "catch the pedophile" things, in my opinion, can be dangerous. One, they are treating children as if they were pure and niave, when in reality, most of them are not. Two, they reinforce to children that since they are children, they should be excused from the consequences of their own mistakes. They should not. (I also have a problem with lesser punishments for children murderers, the victim is just as dead no matter what the perp's age...) I think people are of the mind that an adult should be looking out for the child, and all that stuff, but in reality, children need to be taught to look after themselves. We are not doing that in this country, and we have now had successive generations of people believing "I deserve" instead of "I need to take care of myself first." You can only have the latter when people have to bear the costs of their own mistakes, and that unfortunately includes things such as this.

Obviously, there is a fine line between something we find unpleasant, such as a horny kid sleeping with an adult, and an adult using positions of trust, authority, etc. to otherwise convince a young child to do something they otherwise would not. My problem with a lot of these things is how do we really know these kids are unwilling? I suspect that a lot of them actually are very willing, as much as that disturbs us.

So I am not sure about these stings, and these types of pedophile prosecutions in general. I am also fearful that they can lead to other infringements on our liberty that were not intended.

[AlexM]

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I don't know your age or your parental status. If you are young and without kids, I can understand why you might believe that 16 is OK. But, 16. yr. olds lack the abilty to make sound decisions.

Developmentally, they are not capable of entering into an adult relationship as an equal.

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The problem with this is that by and large the same is true of 26 year olds. The age limits we use are pretty much arbitrary.

Also... 16 is legal in more than half the country.

[AlexM]

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16 is the age of consent here in the UK.

14 is the age of consent in Holland.

Japan is 12 ive heard.

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Japan is 18. Holland is 12, but the parents have to be ok with it too.

[laurentia]

How about calling the show: "To catch someone who is more attracted to the rosy cheeks and innocent look of a 14 year old woman than to the saggy skin of a 40 year old."
As far as I am concerned if she has pubic hair and menstruates then she is a woman no matter what the feminists would like you to believe. She will have sex around that age anyway, then why not with someone who has patience, experience and intelligence. (Which on the other hand is probably not anyone frequenting chatrooms.)
(And you believe it or not I am telling you this as someone who happen to like more mature women.)

[ligastar]

FWIW, new episode starts in 5 minutes on NBC.