Pedophile that hasn't acted yet. Legal action?

[Dominic]

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They're in the act of intending to send stuff via online or meeting an identified as underaged person. They know the definitive parameters of the situation. Their intent is clear. They're not mistakenly sending a video of themselves to a 13 yr old.

People also get arrested for trying to hire a someone to kill a person w/o anyone actually getting killed. I think that's a better parallel to compare.

b

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That's a very interesting parallel. Gives me a lot to think about today because I'm most definitely in favor of locking up the person who has solicited to hire someone to kill, but I'm very unsure of what to do with the person soliciting for sex.

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There's a difference. Even if the person who attempts to kill another doesn't succeed (say it was a sting and the hitman was actually a cop), there is still an intended victim. There is an actual person who the would-be murderer wanted to kill.

In the case of "To Catch a Predator" there are no victims. There are no underaged children that the alleged pedos are soliciting. It's make-believe.

Now, if the cops or To Catch a Predator want to have a real 13 year old talk online to these creeps to lure them to the house, then I'm okay with it because there is a real child the pedo is after.