Do you think "To Catch a Predator" on Dateline is entrapment?

Question

I think it is.

Answer 1

It is without a doubt entrapment but because of the nature of the crime we and the courts are willing to look the other way and pretend it is not. Just because it is a well known show does not change the fact that it is entrapment.

p.s. mofo thanks for the informative cnbc answer.

Answer 2

For entrapment to de a defense, the accused must have been otherwise uninclined to commit the crime, and would not have done so were it not for the acts of the police.

However, in the Dateine "To Catch a Predator" series, the chats involved are not initiated by the decoy. The chats begin by the action of the arrested person. The accused predators are the ones who initiated discussion of sex.

Each arrested person got in a car, bus, taxi, or otherwise walked to the bust house... very overt acts in furtherance of their intent.

Many of them brought items requested by the decoys. Many bring condoms. One brought rope and duct tape.

It is simply not entrapment. This has been suggested as a defense, but when weighed against the actual facts of the case, an entrapment defense has never been successful in a single case developed as a result of these sting operations.

Answer 3

I think that entrapment would involve somehow forcing a person into a crime (i.e. I will hurt you or your family or some such thing if you do not participate) and thereby force a person to do something they would not normally do. The people on the dateline show are in the chatrooms of their own free will and are looking for young people to molest. This is really not much different from a police car waiting for speeders. Not fun to get caught - but if you are guilty, you are.

Answer 4

I'm torn. Part of me thinks that shows like that one, and Dateline just scream entrapment. But at the same time, nobody has ever twisted these guys arms to force them into trying to have sex with little boys and girls. ( I have 6 daughters. If something happened like that with one of mine, the police and court system would be the LAST thing the guy had to worry about. ) And of course the guy cares about ratings. " School teacher molests 5, " unfortunately, sells more papers and commercials than " school teacher saves five from burning minivan. " It's a sad indictment of our society, but it's true. Have you ever watched the shows like that. You kind of have to love the look on the perverts' faces, when the cops handcuff them. They all claim they knew it was a set-up, and they were just testing them to see if it was real. The fact is, if any one of them showed up and found a twelve year old girl, they would have had sex with her. I mean, really, when they show up with two 4-packs of wine coolers, a six pack of condoms and a pocket full of roofies, who really thinks they had innocent intentions? I think it borders on entrapment, but who can really be upset with something that gets perverts off the streets, and in jail where they belong?

Answer 5

No, it is not because if the dumb@$$ who watches the show and still go down there to molest a child get caught then they deserved to be locked up in prison. That's not entrapment but that is totally stupidity on the molesters part.

Answer 6

Absolutely not. At this point, that show has been so highly aired that they know it is out there and they still are sick enough to try and get their kicks with a minor. They deserve to be caught and plastered all over television. Think about how many young children Dateline has saved.

Answer 7

Obviously and yellow journalism not to defend pedophiles but they pretended to be a 16 yr old girl and 16 is legal in many states therefore taking advantage of those unfamiliar with the law not to mention the fact one must be a Senator to talk dirty to minors legally...the laws vary so much from state to state and they used all of this to their advantage to create a news story which is yellow journalism and anyone who has had even jr high school journalism class would realize this. anyway as I said those that prey on children(depending on what your idea of what a child is) probably deserve no better but this is extreme and unnecessary kind of ugly but is okay because no one will speak out for fear of being called a pedophile sympathizer. We definitely need uniform laws so that all arrested understand what the legal age of consent is many agree with 18 but whatever is agreed on so long as it is consistent so everyone understands the law. note some of these men were hardly over 18 themselves and came from different states and perhaps different countries. Ignorance may not be an excuse but it hardly seems altogether fair due to differences in state laws and the age that Dateline used as bait. they had to knowingly pick a state like Florida whose age of consent is higher than most states. Hawaii would not be a favorite state as their age of consent is 14 and the girl therfore would have been legal under state law and therfore no news story or cops jumping out of hedges.I admit some of these Men surely had some serious mental problems and I'm sure they chose to air more of the older more sick individuals as opposed to guys who were 18 responding which would have made their hypocracy more evident. Few of us want to watch police tackle an 18 year old who was from another state where the age of consent was lower coming to date another 18 yr old who was pretending to be 16 its just not as interesting news. It is much better to air a mentaly unstable 50 plus or so especially if could just turn out ot be a school teacher or a priest or minister or something now thats a ratings grabber...Its all disgusting the sick individuals and Dateline for profiting off of them. Let the police do their jobs not the news media.

Answer 8

No, it's not. They're specifically trained NOT to lure predators in. They NEVER start up a sexual conversation, they always keep it innocent because if they start it, then they can't bust the pedophiles.

If you read the conversations at the site that helps Dateline ( http://www.perverted-justice.com/ ), you'll notice that the person posing as the kid doesn't talk about sex first nor does he/she encourage it.

Answer 9

I don't know if it is entrapment, but I thought it would be fun to pretent to be a 13 year old boy on line, and give the pervs my boss' address. He'd have fags knocking on his door all night long.

Answer 10

Whether it is entrapment or not, if the sorry b*stard s weren't on-line chatting with underage girls, they wouldn't have been caught up in the sting. I don't care how they catch pedophiles, as long as they catch their sorry a**es,