They are emotionally and intellectually stunted, and the very society that has failed them at home and in school is exploiting them simply because it’s entertaining to watch. Many of these child predators aren’t predators at all, but children themselves. One man explained to Hansen that he only relates to younger girls, presumably because he never matured past the age of 13. We watch for the same reason we drive slowly past a car wreck on the freeway: It could be us. But there’s no justifying the exploitive nature of To Catch a Predator. Regardless of whether the law is “right” or not, these men should know it’s illegal. But yes, the laws are what they are, and a 13-year-old in our society is not supposed to know what she’s doing (or is it that we’re terrified at the prospect that she actually might?). But does anyone actually know a real 13-year-old who would engage a stranger in cyber sex and then invite him over to drink alcohol and touch his or her private parts and not know what they were doing? It’s ultimately statutory rape with a teenager…or intent to commit statutory rape, which is, essentially, intending to commit a crime that is subjective at best. To say nothing of the fact that there are no actual “children” involved, but instead decoys who are constantly doing laundry and/or offering lemonade to their prospective rapists.ĭuring an on-camera interview, Casey, the 18-year-old decoy, said: “I can’t imagine a 13-year-old accepting that and liking that!” “That” loosely translates to, if one man’s description of what he wants to do to her (consensually) is any indication, being treated with a hell of a lot more respect than she’s bound to encounter once she reaches high school. The process by which these predators are lured to the multimillion-dollar house being used on the Jersey Shore edition of the show surely constitutes entrapment, and, seeing as how no actual physical crimes are being committed, these can only be defined as Thought Crimes, a fitting offense to be exploiting during a period in American history when being arrested or detained for thinking or talking about something is a very legitimate fear. Yes, we all know touching a little boy’s pee-pee or a little girl’s hoo-ha is wrong, but there’s also something perverted about the justice doled out by NBC and the aptly titled vigilante watchdog group Perverted Justice, who Dateline hired as “consultants” for the show and who mainly consist of portly middle-aged women who possess the disturbing ability to sound like 12-year-old boys. Rather than emerge from behind a curtain with a clipboard and pen in hand, as he usually does, correspondent Chris Hansen “interviews” his “guests” while sitting in a beach chair along the “scenic coast of New Jersey,” which he describes as “a perfect vacation spot for parents, children…and potential predators!” Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator hit a new low this summer with its two-part Jersey Shore edition. It’s kind of like the MTV Beach House, only instead of teenage girls flashing their breasts and muscled-up boys licking whipped cream off of the girls’ stomachs, the house is filled with creeps whose kismet is public humiliation, divorce, and probably some jail time.

Dateline to catch a predator