To Catch a Predator

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To Catch A Predator title card

To Catch a Predator is a series of hidden camera investigations by the television newsmagazine Dateline NBC devoted to the subject of identifying and detaining potential child sexual abusers who attempt to contact children over the Internet. The stories, which have all been done by Dateline NBC correspondent Chris Hansen and producer Lynn Keller, are conducted as an undercover sting operation with the help of online watchdog group Perverted Justice. Since the third installment, law enforcement officials have also been involved in the operation, leading to many arrests. Several other NBC affiliates, such as WTMJ in Milwaukee and Kansas City's KSHB have also done local versions of To Catch a Predator, some with the cooperation of Perverted Justice.

The To Catch a Predator series is so popular that it was parodied at the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards with Hansen and host Conan O'Brien in a pre-filmed opening sequence. Hansen also made an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show on September 28, 2006, to talk about the series.

1 Method
2 Criticism
- 2.1 Entrapment claims
- 2.2 Conflict of interest
3 Investigations
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Method

The method used to catch would-be predators is derived from that normally used by Perverted Justice. Perverted Justice volunteers build profiles of a clearly underage person on social networking websites and enter chatrooms as decoys, waiting for predators to initiate a chat. Such chats, which are always logged, sometimes turn sexually graphic, and some of those result in appointments for sex.

For the Dateline NBC stories, would-be predators are actually invited to an undercover house used by Dateline NBC for the duration of the operation; in accordance with Perverted Justice policy, phone contact is always established with a suspected predator before any appointment is set up. The visitors are led to believe that the supposed minor is home alone, and upon coming inside the house, are soon confronted by Hansen, who interviews each one at length about their intentions. After this, Hansen identifies himself as a Dateline NBC correspondent and informs the visitor that the entire interview has been recorded on hidden camera as part of the Dateline NBC story. If law enforcement officials are involved in the operation, the predator is then promptly arrested upon leaving the house.

During interviews, would-be predators often claim to not know how old the supposed minor is, until confronted by Hansen with the chat logs, which show the decoy clearly identifying as a minor. (In many areas, online solicitation with the belief that the other person is a minor is a crime, regardless of whether or not the other person actually is a minor.) In addition, interviewees also often claim:

never to have solicited online before
to be only trying to teach children about the dangers of the Internet
that they would not have done anything sexual had the chat not been a sting operation

Lt. Jake Jacoby, of the Fairfax County Police Department, was shown in the second installment dismissing these claims as excuses, stating that the suspects are lying "usually about 100 percent of the time".

[edit] Criticism

Among the more prominent critics of the series has been Brian Montopoli of the CBS News Public Eye blog and formerly of the Columbia Journalism Review. Montopoli argues that although Dateline NBC leaves legal punishment up to police and prosecutors, broadcasting the suspects on national television, in the context of exposing criminal behaviour, is already a form of punishment which the media has no right to inflict. Montopoli also suggests that NBC News is more concerned about ratings than actually bringing Internet predators to justice:

But NBC is first and foremost a business, and the producers' motives are not simply altruistic. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I find it telling that this program has been remade and rerun so often. You could argue that NBC is just making sure as many people as possible are aware predators are out there, but is it too much to think that a little thing called "ratings" might play a part as well?^[1]

[edit] Entrapment claims

Montopoli also suggests that To Catch a Predator may not be as immune from the defence of entrapment as the show claims. Although Perverted Justice volunteers wait for the suspect to initiate contact, Dateline anchor Stone Phillips concedes that "... in many cases, the decoy is the first to bring up the subject of sex". (Phillips defends this, saying that "... once the hook is baited, the fish jump and run with it like you wouldn't believe".)^[2] Montopoli contends that this alone may render Predator-related cases vulnerable to the defence of entrapment. To date, however, the claim of entrapment has not been used successfully in a court of law to defend a To Catch a Predator suspect.

[edit] Conflict of interest

Beginning with the fourth investigation, Dateline began paying Perverted Justice a consultant's fee to do its regular work. It was suggested that this payment created a potential conflict of interest for Perverted Justice, an organization run largely on the efforts of volunteers.^[3]

[edit] Investigations

[edit] New York City

The first in the series aired in November 2004 as a Dateline NBC segment called Dangerous Web. The operation was set up in a home outside New York City, to which eighteen men came over less than three days after making an appointment for sex with a minor. One of the men in the investigation was a New York City firefighter.

[edit] Washington, D.C.

The sequel to the first story was an hour-long special airing in November 2005. The operation was located in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and saw nineteen men arrive over three days. Among the men caught were a rabbi and a high school teacher; both lost their jobs after taping^[4] and have since been convicted and sentenced to jail. Another man was interviewed by Hansen after showing up at the house naked, then encountered again the very next day at a local McDonald's.

[edit] Riverside, California

Mug shots of the fifty men charged in the Riverside, California operation

The third installment in the series was a two-hour-long special, which aired in February 2006. The operation was located in Riverside, California, and, at the request of Perverted Justice, was the first done in co-operation with local law enforcement officials. Fifty men were arrested in three days and charged with felonies -- so many that three arrived almost simultaneously, and law enforcement, at one point, ran out of personnel. (One other person arrested was charged with a misdemeanor.) The men arrested included a criminal investigator working for the Department of Homeland Security and, for the first time, two men who claimed to have seen previous Dateline investigations into online sex predators.

[edit] Greenville, Ohio

The fourth investigation aired in two one-hour-long parts during April and May 2006 as the first half of a month-long series of To Catch a Predator specials. The operation was based in Greenville, Ohio and resulted in the arrests of eighteen men in three days. The small-town location of the undercover house meant that potential predators from the larger surrounding cities of Indianapolis, Columbus, and Cincinnati had to drive upwards of an hour and a half to reach the operation. Among the men caught was one who had been slated to start a prison sentence for a different charge of solicitation in four days.

Under Ohio law, for prosecutors to file the most serious charges, there must be a police officer involved in the chat or phone conversation, so the Perverted Justice members who took part were temporarily deputized for the length of the operation.

[edit] Fort Myers, Florida

As with the Ohio investigation, the fifth investigation was aired in two one-hour-long parts in May 2006, forming the second half of the month-long series of To Catch a Predator specials. The operation was based in Fort Myers, Florida and saw twenty-four men arrested in three days. Among the more notable moments in the investigation was the arrest of a man who had brought along his five-year-old son to the house, and another man whose chat log discussed using a tub of Cool Whip and a cat in sexual acts, who stripped in the house before encountering Hansen.

[edit] Fortson, Georgia

In August 2006, Perverted Justice announced that the sheriff's department in Harris County, Georgia had arrested twenty men over two weekends in another sting operation. The investigation aired on Dateline NBC in two parts on September 13 and September 22, and showed a growing awareness of the television series among potential predators; Dateline itself was referenced by name several times. One man said that he had seen the show "about three times on TV already".

Shortly after the first half of this investigation aired, the Georgia Governor's office announced a new Child Safety Initiative which would triple the number of special agents in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation dedicated to catching Internet predators and double the number of forensic computer specialists dedicated to helping prosecute computer crimes.

[edit] Petaluma, California

From August 25–August 27, Perverted Justice and Dateline worked with law enforcement in Petaluma, California to arrest thirty men in three days (one was later released due to lack of evidence). The resulting investigation aired on Dateline NBC on September 29 and October 6.

Petaluma was the hometown of kidnap and murder victim Polly Klaas, and was also a former home of John Mark Karr, whose false confession to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey had dominated news headlines a month prior. Also, the last segment of the Petaluma investigation focused in part on the Mark Foley scandal, which had broken just days before the investigation went to air. Indeed, several political cartoons[1][2][3] published in the wake of the scandal explicitly referenced To Catch a Predator by name.

Partially due to its proximity to Silicon Valley, the investigation saw several computer engineers arrested, one of whom declared to the police that he was a well-respected man in society with a Ph.D. in computer engineering. Also among the more notable arrests was that of an active-duty Marine Corps sniper who, in his chat, said: "I carry a gun everywhere I go". Police intervened immediately before any confrontation with Hansen and found a shotgun in the sniper's truck.

[edit] Long Beach, California

In September 2006, Perverted Justice and Dateline once again worked with law enforcement in California, this time in Long Beach to arrest thirty-nine men. At the end of the Petaluma investigation, it was revealed that the Long Beach investigation would feature a man who had previously been encountered in the Riverside operation.

[edit] Murphy, Texas

In November 2006, Perverted Justice announced that another To Catch a Predator sting had been conducted with law enforcement in Murphy, Texas. Twenty-one men arrived at the filming location over four days, with law enforcement investigating additional suspects. Most notably, these additional suspects, who conducted chats but did not arrive at the undercover house, included Rockwall County district attorney Louis W. Conradt Jr., who shot and killed himself on 5 November 2006 at his home when police attempted to serve him with a search warrant.^[5]