How Perverted Is This Justice?
When you work in television, nothing is more important than ratings. Not artistic integrity, nor common sense and reasonability, and certainly not journalistic credibility. Here’s looking at you, Bill O’Reilly (actually, I try not to look at him, as his visage is so dark and tormented that it’s been known to make my eyes bleed). But no, I’m not going to make this into another bitch-fest about Fox News, because frankly, I’m rather of the opinion that if Fox News is your main source of media, you really have no one to blame but yourself. No, I’m talking about NBC his time.

Specifically, I have a problem with a segment Dateline has been running for the last several years. If you haven’t seen it you’ve certainly heard of it. It’s called “To Catch A Predator”, and it’s gotten a ton of media coverage ever since it began. See, what happens is this: A task force called “Perverted Justice” has people go into chat rooms, pretending to be preteen girls. These decoy teens engage in explicit conversations with adults, eventually convincing them to meet with the “teen”. The trap is set, and when the would-be child molesters are lured into a specially set up house, they encounter Dateline correspondent Chris Hansen (A poor man’s Stone Phillips) who chastises them for being bad people. And then as they try to leave with there tail between their legs, they’re arrested.

Hmm.

Well, it all sounds good on the surface, I suppose. I mean, I love a good NAMBLA joke as much as anyone. And the show gets wild ratings (that’s why they’ve done, like, 28 different segments of it), and that’s not really a surprise. People love to see something creepy on television, it thrills them. And nothing is more sick and disgusting than a child molester (for good reasons). So, you have your heroes, the Perverted Justice team and Chris Hansen, tricking the disgusting perverts into outing themselves on national television for millions to see right before the police nab them. Sounds like a brilliant plan, because sure, lives are totally ruined, but they’re the bad guys lives, not real people. And better yet, you add another level of fear to all this, because most of the people they catch are fairly average looking, “normal” people. Even your neighbor could be one of them. And fear sells real good. Yes it does.

However, more and more “To Catch A Predator” is receiving criticism. The main reason for this has to do with altruism. It’s been argued that Dateline keeps doing this segment, not out of a sense of civic duty, but because every time they do they get a ratings spike. And I do agree, that’s exactly why NBC has these segments, because they’re profitable. But just because money is the reason they show these things, that doesn’t negate the “good” that these segments do. I’m not convinced that profiting by doing something positive for the community necessarily negates the positive-ness of doing that same community service.

What does trouble me, though, is the total acceptance at face value that what “To Catch A Predator” does is, in fact, good. In my mind, the whole concept of what happens here brings up a host of entrapment and due process issues, and that makes me feel a bit icky. And not “child molester” icky, I mean “Bill of Rights” icky. Here’s a perfect example of why: Friday night I caught a repeat of an episode that took place in Petaluma, California. Here’s an interview between the detective in charge of the sting, and one of those bastard child-molesting crazies. The catch? This guy is a prominent San Francisco doctor. We begin right after he has stupidly waved his Miranda Rights to an attorney.

Det. Nelson: Why did you come to the house in Petaluma today?
Wolin: I was curious.
Det. Nelson: Okay. Curious about what?
Wolin: I chatted with someone online. She asked to meet me on several occasions. I declined. And today again she asked. I had a little bit of time, not very much.
Det. Nelson: Okay.
Wolin: And so I thought I would come out and meet her and nothing more.
Det. Nelson: Okay. How old was the person you were chatting with?
Wolin: I’m not sure. I know she was young and I know that—
Det. Nelson: Under 18?
Wolin: I’m not sure.
Det. Nelson: Did you talk to her about “touching and kissing and making each other feel good”?
Wolin: I remember she’s saying that she had trouble finding somebody to make her feel good.
Det. Nelson: Okay.
Wolin: I was playing with her.
Det. Nelson: And then you typed to her “I wouldn’t stop until you came over and over.”
Wolin: Remember saying that.
Det. Nelson: Then you talked to her about kissing her chest?
Wolin: I don’t remember.
Det. Nelson: And then you told her, “No I’m real but you’re under 18 and I’m over. We would have to be so careful.”
Wolin: I don’t remember saying that. But I told her that she needed to be—I was concerned about her. She needed to be careful.
Det. Nelson: So you commented about her body lookin’ pretty—
Wolin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Det. Nelson: Okay.
Wolin: I don’t remember.
Det. Nelson: And then you asked her what bra size she wore? And she said, “30 B but it kinda big on me right now. I’m still growin’.”
Wolin: I don’t remember her saying that.
Det. Nelson: Okay. And saying that you will kiss them?
Wolin: I don’t remember. The only reason I came today I was curious that I wasn’t going to do anything. And if you read that you can tell that over and over again I said that both I shouldn’t come. She should be careful.
Det. Nelson: But I’m also reading, I mean correct me if I’m wrong, you’re talking about you want her to take your pants off.
Wolin: When?
Det. Nelson: You talk about you know, “What will you wear?” “I don’t know what—whatever—whatever’s clean. Something sexy.” Then you said, “Will you take it off for me?” And then you ask her then, “Do you want her to take your pants off also?”
Wolin: It was just wa—
Det. Nelson: And, “You can—you can take mine off if you want.”
Wolin: I wasn’t so—
Det. Nelson: How do you wanna do it?
Wolin: I wasn’t going to do anything. It was not appropriate. Officer Nelson, I shouldn’t have talked to her. You’re right. I wasn’t—
Det. Nelson: Okay.
Wolin: --going to do anything with her.
Det. Nelson: So you drove 40 minutes from Piedmont to meet a 13-year-old—
Wolin: I didn’t know she was 13.
Nelson: --that nothing would’ve happened.
Wolin: That’s right.
Det. Nelson: And you expect me to believe that?
Wolin: It’s true.
Det. Nelson: After you talk about having—
Wolin: It’s the truth.
Det. Nelson: --different sexual—
Wolin: It’s the truth.
Det. Nelson: --acts with her?
Dr. Wolin: It’s the truth. She begged me to come. And I know that doesn’t make it right but I never would’ve done anything.
Det. Nelson: Okay. All right. The time’s approximately 14:38 and I conclude the interview.

Now, while Dr. Wolin did something incredibly stupid, yes, did he do anything that was legally wrong? While solicitation to a minor is a federal offense, neither the Detective nor Hansen earlier in the show debate with the Doctor about whether he did or did not know the “girl” was 13. He might have, but there’s nothing in the transcripts that are given that prove it. There is one instance in these transcripts of the doctor saying she’s under 18, but nothing is embellished upon.

More to the point, though, is the claim that the girl “begged” him repeatedly to come to the house. You’ll notice the detective doesn’t debate this either. If this is true, this is clearly entrapment. I’ll begrudgingly let it slide that Dateline admits that usually the sting operators themselves are the first to bring up an in-person meeting, but if they repeatedly attempted to get this Doctor to enter their trap and it was after several refusals that he finally caved in, that’s entrapment, plain and simple. It seems likely to me that Dr. Wolin has long held closeted pedophilic urges and fantasies, and after many years of wondering he saw an opportunity with someone who really wanted to experiment. I’m not saying it’s morally right, and certainly if he had ended up acting on these feelings it would have been illegal. But talking to a 13 year old on the internet about sex is not illegal (usually). And meeting someone you meet online is not illegal. And proving someone intended to meet a minor for the purpose of sexual intercourse is difficult, to say the least.

I don’t condone what these people who are arrested did, but I do think a television broadcast like this brings up some serious questions. The thing that Dateline likes to tiptoe around is that Perverted Justice is a vigilante-activist organization. They are not recognized officers of the law, nor do they have government backing. I mean, when your whole mission statement is to help protect children and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has criticized your methods and said they won’t support you, you’d think that would say something to them. And I’m sorry, but isn’t it possible that this is causing more problems than it solves? Sure, really stupid would-be child molesters are arrested (and I’m going to keep mostly quiet about the logical problems with “molesting” someone who asks you to come have sex with them, because consent laws are a different matter entirely). But who’s to say that Perverted Justice is really doing anything more than thinning out the herd? Sure, the ones dumb enough to fall for this are caught, but what about the smart ones with lots of experience at this? Well, it teaches them to be smarter, doesn’t it? Everyone in the US knows about this program, and honestly, who has the most to learn from this? Not the parents, no, but the would-be child abductors. Because they see what’s happening, and that teaches them to be more careful.

But they allegedly stop child molesters. So, you see, legal process and common sense rarely affect people’s judgment. People see this report on heroic citizen volunteers stopping the bad, horrible pedophiles, and that’s all they see. Most people can’t look at the big picture, and this shortsightedness is, in my opinion, the heart of what wrong about Perverted Justice and “To Catch A Predator”. We can not just abandon entrapment laws because the particular crime is so horrible, and we can’t ignore rationality because a particular group of vigilantes goes after a particularly seedy group of bad guys. Enforcing the law is supposed to be the job of officers of the law. The system isn’t perfect, but ignoring the rules of the system isn’t the answer either. And I’m sorry, but Perverted Justice can claim they’d sent 127 perverts to prison all they want. The people they’re arrested may very well have done something dreadfully wrong. That doesn’t make what Perverted Justice does right.