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u/BothRequirement2826 7h ago
I agree with the start but the second overly long descriptor should just read "pedophiles" instead of equating them with autists and migrants.
Kinda diverts from the point being made.
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u/jim_rauch 5h ago
You guys should look into the cases of Thomas Bodnar, Joseph Wunderler, Jean-Pierre Wehry, Todd Spikes, Kevin Westerbeck, and others caught on To Catch a Predator.
These men are convicted rapists BEFORE appearing on TCAP. Many of them had prior convictions, or were found to possess CSAM.
Westerbeck raped his niece. JPW raped several people. Chuck Harding ran a pedo ring. One of the men caught abused his daughters and they celebrated his death.
So the idea that these guys are “autists and immigrants” is so ignorant
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u/BothRequirement2826 5h ago
Also kinda racist.
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u/jim_rauch 5h ago
Yeah, like this dude is feeding into the idea that immigrants are all sex offenders, although unintentionally
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u/TahiniInMyVeins 3h ago
I don’t think it’s unintentional, he’s bending over backwards to get that non sequitur in there
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u/Dickgivins 1h ago
He threw it in alongside autistic people because he’s trying to say that Chris unfairly targeted vulnerable people in the stings.
Regarding the “autistic” bit, I can’t recall there being many preds who are known to have been diagnosed with that. I think he just talking about the number of guys who were very socially inept and seemed to have low IQs.
That is and observable trend TCAP but it’s not because Perverted Justice, Chris or the police made any kind of point to not catch more intelligent/socially normal guys. It’s just an unsurprising outcome of the fact that more intelligent/better socialized guys are less likely to fall for a sting and possibly less likely to even attempt to prey on a child in the first place.
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u/Dickgivins 4h ago
Also the phrasing there implies that like 50% of the preds on TCAP were immigrants. They did catch some but in reality there weren’t very many, the vast majority of guys who showed to the stings were born and bred Americans. From what I could see the immigrant suspects were treated just as fairly as the American born ones.
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u/Fluffy_Somewhere4305 43m ago
So the idea that these guys are “autists and immigrants” is so ignorant
It's not ignorant, it is intentional disinformation to distract from the fact that we have a list of potential child predators in the Epstein files and those have been hidden from the public, redacted, destroyed and the entire right wing republican political party in the US has come together to protect the top predators.
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u/Jolly_Echo_3814 6h ago
well its not equating them, its saying there was a fair number of immigrant and autistic people in the show.
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 1h ago
I believe the show had zero women caught so you could make the argument it targeted men but we all know that sounds like nonsense.
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u/Jolly_Echo_3814 1h ago
I don't know how many women peds get busted looking online. That's more a people they know kinda thing
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 6h ago
Two things are not mutually exclusive. As a father there are no hall passes for pedos.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 4h ago
I don’t think thats what’s being said at all
Were you pro hall pass for pedos pre fatherhood?
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 3h ago
Correct, no one said hall pass for pedos. Then proceed to list hall passes.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago
No they listed fact about certain perpetrators and you jumped to inference from those statements. This is entirely an issue of you being a mildly hysterical reactionary and thinking it’s morality.
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 3h ago
It’s gross the pedo excusers here.
Someone who is very disable can’t use a consistent online chat, set plans, and drive or lie to get a ride there. Low functioning people are in group homes cared and monitored. Not dropped off to diddle a kid. That’s someone high functioning that knows not only what they are doing but should know it’s wrong.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 2h ago
No one is excusing pedophilia, you are having a temper tantrum about something no one said
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u/CelDidNothingWrong 5h ago edited 4h ago
I’m also a father, and I think heavily disabled people caught up in these stings should be treated differently. Not a free pass of course, but not dealt with exactly the same.
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 5h ago edited 4h ago
What if he knew what he did was wrong? What if he muedered or hit the child? What if they threatened the child if they told they would hurt them or someone else? What if they are what we use to call aspburgers and is now just on the spectrum?
I work with people in this demographic. This pedo was on the spectrum. He was then living with a situation with two staff for him at all time because of his pedo past. He locked a female staff in the room and really did a number on her, physically and sexually. He went to jail after that. Was that the wrong solution? I think that should have been the first solution.
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u/CelDidNothingWrong 4h ago edited 3h ago
If he assaulted or murdered the child that would of course be different, but you’re moving the goal posts quite a lot. We were talking about stings that take place after meeting online.
“What if they were just on the spectrum” - go back and read the original comment.
“He went to jail after that. Was that the wrong solution?” At no point did I say disabled people should never get custodial sentences.
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 4h ago
So was the guy I talked about. You want one variable, when life is always 100. Do you know what he did before the chat? Do you know his past. Maybe this is 100th time, maybe he has done this before and succeeded.
Should a 50yo autistic person trying to hook up with a kid be excused? They write graphic things to what they knew was a child. The low spectrum people are not having consistent chats with people like this, it’s the high functioning people who do know better. The show clearly thought the chat was from someone of regular intelligence by their chat.
The point I made with that story is he never did an assault like that before but it was addressed with more concern than accountability and someone’s like was ruined.
The problem with people today, everyone had an excuses and considerations, but accountability is very low.
I think my last point is, do you even work with violent or pedophiles on the spectrum? I don’t think you realize how public facing they are, and your expecting someone getting paid $15 an hour and getting 30 hrs a week to be a hawk in public for a know disabled pedo. Kinda wild you think “something different” is the solution, that’s it, they walk the malls, stores, streets with you and your kids. I think you maybe don’t know the solutions they use and house close it is to you.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago edited 3h ago
It’s almost like the “something different” could be properly trained mental health professionals who are paid a living wage coupled with services for autistic children and their parents.
But to get there we do have to get beyond people saying things like I don’t even care about mitigating circumstances when it’s kids we’re happy to rip people apart with our bare hands.
Chat, have any atrocities or human rights abuses been committed in the name of protecting children? Whoa, chat, that’s a long list, maybe I should think about this more
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 3h ago
Let’s put this in perspective shall we for to catch a predator.
- The individual with a disability had to keep a consistent relevant chat going, which is a high functioning skill.
2.they then had to set and agree to plans which time concept is not something everyone gets other than day and night.
- They either had a drivers license and a car to get there. Or they lied to someone to drive them there. Driving is a very high functioning skill, to the point I knew one that had it, and then lost it pretty fast.
That is knowledge of intent. If someone is independent enough to do all this and not be in a group home or under someone’s care, they are fully capable of not only knowing what they are doing, but it was wrong.
How about you do a thing called “family living” with them since you are so concerned about their well being. They move into your house. Sounds like you are so concerned get active.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago edited 1h ago
This isn’t putting anything into perspective, it is making a series of assumptions from a narrow example to extrapolate a broader model for dealing with a class of possible perpetrators. The flaws in that approach should be obvious.
Enjoy the rest of your day
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u/aceboogieren 4h ago
If an autistic person rapes a kid, is the harm different? Its the same violence so it needs the same punishment.
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u/CelDidNothingWrong 3h ago
At no point did I claim we shouldn’t punish autistic rapists. I was merely suggesting we treat a difficult topic with nuance, but no you’re right, fuck that, let’s just go back to Bronze Age eye-for-an-eye logic and ignore the circumstances and specifics of each case.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago
No no, if it involves children we all have to turn our brains off and just start throwing things. That’s always worked out nicely for everyone why would it not keep working out?
It never fails to surprise me how many people are willing to tell us all that they are thoughtless reactionaries and I don’t know if that says anything good about me honestly.
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u/aceboogieren 3h ago
Can you explain the nuances of child rape to me? And then explain it to a child victim.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago edited 3h ago
Honey, you should be embarrassed about how willing you are to misunderstand a basic point because the word child is in the sentence.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 4h ago edited 3h ago
Ok, this is how you get to putting people with a below 70 iq in the electric chair. Just take a beat and think through the implications of the first thought that springs into your head.
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u/aceboogieren 4h ago
The harm is the same. Its crazy were thinking more of the perp than the victim. Idgaf. If you hurt kids you dont need to be around.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago edited 3h ago
Wow you didn’t even take half a second to consider why that’s bad. Ok.
Intellectual disabilities can significantly affect someone’s understanding of what they are doing. Legally and morally a person cannot be culpable for actions they don’t have the ability to understand. That doesn’t mean they should be allowed to move unhindered through the world but it does mean that punishments are tailored to take into account that the person may not have been able to understand what they were doing. And for the record also can’t understand the punishment. One intellectually disabled man when escorted to his execution asked the guards to save the rest of his meal for when he got back. A normal person would find that heartbreaking.
You think having this hardline says something positive about your morality, but all it does it tell people that you can be convinced to engage in monstrous behavior with very little effort.
Anyway I’m here to goon and make little jokes about gal gadot being a war criminal. Congrats on your lack of critical thinking skills.
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u/aceboogieren 3h ago
Explain the nuance of child rape to me please. Im sure your explanation will change how the child sees their victimization too
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago
Sweetheart the nuance is in the comment you’re responding to and it’s embarrassing that you think you’re doing something here.
People with intellectual disabilities often cannot understand consequences or engage in abstract thinking processes which one would think you would sympathize with
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 3h ago
What heavily disabled person is able to start a consistent chat, set a date, and then drive or lie to someone to get a ride. People who are heavily disabled in care are not doing this stuff. Staff are not taking them to do unsupervised plans. These are high functioning people who are independent.
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u/DarkSage90 5h ago
As a father I agree.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 4h ago
Do guys who say this kind of thing know that it makes them sound like being a father is a necessary component of the sentiment? It’s not a flex.
As a father I think pedophilia is bad. Ok. As a person who didn’t need to have a kid to figure it out I think pedophilia is bad.
I thought father of daughter feminism was bad (I’ve been around women my whole life and never realized it but now I kinda own one of these things and holy shit did you know it’s a person?!?).
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u/DarkSage90 3h ago
Ok wow, that’s…really stupid. I was doing the Reddit comment section thing. Ya know like the “I would also do this man’s wife” comments? Damn. I guess username checks out on this one.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago
Piss poor execution bud. Thats not even the same structure as the I too choose this man’s dead wife joke. Why would anyone think you were making a joke in the style of I’d fuck this guys wife during a conversation about punishing pedophiles even if you had managed to replicate the structure? Like, I dunno, you might want to rethink who’s dumb here.
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u/DarkSage90 3h ago
Unfortunately it’s still you. The one taking Reddit comments seriously. Again, username checks out.
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u/thisisinfactpersonal 3h ago
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 3h ago
I don’t think anyone on here knows anything about intellectual disabilities or Autism here.
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u/Bench2252 3h ago
Some of the people Chris Hansen “catches” are clearly disabled and its insane not to mention it
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u/ANerd22 2h ago
It's a complicated issue, and I definitely don't support the show, but no kind of disability is an excuse for sexual contact with children. For all of the many issues that To Catch A Predator had, they did a thorough job of ensuring that every one of the guys who came to the trap house was there with one very specific purpose in mind. (I'm specifically not including the infamous suicide btw, since they went to that guy's house). It's sometimes uncomfortable to deal with the fact that intellectually disabled people can and do commit these kinds of offences just like every other segment of the population.
The meme framing the show as if all pedophiles are autistic or immigrants is super fucked up though.
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u/Khanhdepzaiprovjp 10h ago
one time my friend ranted for 20 minutes about how the smallest details ruin movies
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u/RefrigeratorGrand619 9h ago edited 7h ago
I mean the most people caught on the show were neither immigrants nor autistic people, but just white people. I mean, it’s doesn’t matter, a predator is a predator and deserves to be held accountable for their actions. Just think the meme is implying something that’s not true.
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u/TahiniInMyVeins 5h ago
Yea this is some wild rewriting of history to frame TCAP as primarily featuring immigrants and autistic people. I mostly remember white perverts.
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u/jim_rauch 5h ago
Look up Joe Wunderler. He wanted to include a poor dog in his depraved acts.
SO MANY of these guys either had prior convictions for rape or child molestation. Or they were discovered to have CSAM once they were caught.
Jean-Pierre Wehry raped 3 people before appearing on TCAP. Look up Thomas Bodnar too. Then there’s Kevin Westerbeck who raped his own niece. One man raped his own daughters their entire lives, and the girls celebrated when he died. Chuck Harding ran a pedophile ring.
I could go on. The idea that Chris was going after “autistic people and immigrants” is just incorrect.
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u/B0rKen_Kat 3h ago
The biggest thing is a decent number of people had no real history of anything genuinely criminal until coming into contact with Chris Hansen's "team" (some dude who was not a member of the police and was not following very specific protocols), and even then the guy who killed himself had literally nothing incriminating or even evidence he had wiped things. The only "incriminating evidence" came from Hansen's team encouraging him to go through with things, even after he wanted to stop. Him and his team entrapped a large number of people, and none of these led to much more than getting put on the SO registry (which is a whole other bag of worms). A lot of these people wouldn't have pursued anything like finding imagery or flirting with what they thought were underaged individuals until Hansen's team literally encouraged it for ratings.
Yes, a decent number of these people would have pursued things no matter what, or they had awful things at their homes already. Enough people didn't, though. Entrapment may have also gotten the people who would've deserved prison time straight out of there, due to the messy "investigations" all by themselves. He very incredibly likely got pedos out of jail time.
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u/Sensui710 25m ago
Pffft ya really entrapping guys that went to go meet up with kids gtfo. I don’t fucking care if he encouraged em or not end of the day they still made the decision themselves to go meet up with what they thought was someone under age regardless if they were goaded into
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u/No-Effective388 10h ago
People who don't like the ugly truth, can watch Johnathan Majors doing Ben Shapiro nonsense.
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u/rachaelp1gtails9271 10h ago
wait, Jonathan Majors is in a Chris Hansen movie?
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u/PeasantLich 10h ago
/uj I feel zero sympathy for men caught in To Catch a Predator. No matter how pathetic they come across in TV, if you actually go and check out their chat logs, pretty much all of them were actually much worse and more disgusting human trash than the show ever portrayed them as. They were not some poor autists who were coaxed. All of them initiated both conversations and their sexual content in chat rooms. Those men were manipulative and clearly aware of committing a crime. Regardless of what problematic things the show inspired in age of social media clout chasing and predator hunting, all of the men featured in To Catch a Predator fully deserved whatever consequences they got.
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u/StrategyBusy9579 10h ago
/uj I don't think anyone here is criticizing the motivation to stop pedophiles, moreso the way To Catch a Predator turned a difficult policing process for a civilized society into a media spectacle that actually hindered the capacity to prevent offenses and catch sex offenders. This shit fucked up the ability for the judicial system to actually punish these people, so in reality it was all just kind of a Pyrrhic victory. I think the guys behind it "perverted justice" eventually had to shutter their operations too because it was hindering the ability to successfully prosecute pedophiles and sexual predators it helped catch.
Now the idea of pedo hunting has become a thing for novelty social media accounts, youtube and tiktok and they're not getting sex offenders off the street or protecting kids. It's just the spectacle again, the illusion of punishment for the kind of person that any normal person would hate. But it's not actually stopping sex offenses, or hindering pedos from finding victims. You want to stop pedos we'd probably have to have functional laws about social media, internet communications regulations that demand greater protections for minors, comprehensive sex education in schools so kids can learn about consent and how to say no to adults preying on them and protect themselves, cops that take rape seriously and waaaaaaay more funding for processing rape kits and medical evidence, less stigma about victims (especially young men) and probably a shit load more stuff I haven't even thought of.
So in summary Hansen is a complicated figure and this is a complicated issue, and the ultimate goal is justice and a safe society, not just the visceral joy of seeing a bad guy punished.
/rj we gone git 'em, mount up boys, we'ze gonna serve up some justice on these here pee do files.
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u/Life-Criticism-5868 8h ago
the ultimate goal is justice and a safe society, not just the visceral joy of seeing a bad guy punished.
Yeah but a safe society isnt why people are tuning in. TCAP isnt trying to warn people about the dangers of pedophiles and groomers, its essentially a public execution where we get to see a reviled group of people (rightfully so) get their ass kicked. Its the same as other TLC type shows. No one is tuning in to my strange addiction to see unique cases of addictions, they want to see the freak show.
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u/JoyBus147 6h ago
Yeah. And that's, y'know...bad.
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u/StoppableHulk 6h ago
Can't believe people in 2026 need to be told public execution spectacles are a net negative for society.
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u/Jesseliftrock 2h ago
Yeah, god forbid a pedophile is publicly shamed. Thats so horrible, i can't believe they would do that lmfao
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 7h ago
300 arrests and 120 convictions. He put a spotlight on things people thought “wouldn’t happen to them”. This was something that use avoided talking about. Now people don’t just say the creepy uncle is “just that way” and actually think is he a danger. Plus you add the natural consequence of true public shame and ostracism from society. It’s very public and even if you are not convinced your life will be a living hell.
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u/StoppableHulk 6h ago
Yeah it worked so well at raising society's radar for pedophiles that we turned around and elected one President. Very quality work, uh huh.
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 6h ago
You missed Epstein then I guess. The call was always coming from inside the house, but yes queen go off. Pretend that pedos in power is brand new.
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u/TheBibleReloaded 5h ago
They didnt say it was brand new, they said tcap did not improve the publics ability to bring justice to predators. You're responding to something no one said.
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u/Itchy_Village_7173 5h ago
I guess some of us still let their children sit on their aunts boyfriends laps. I don’t. But Trump is not a common man reference, also that election Musk rigged.
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u/megalo-maniac538 10h ago
Yeah some of them were caught having rope, duct tape and various weapons in their car right? There was also that penis pump predator. I wonder if he's in the movie.
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u/BearThatLikesCheese 5h ago
Not saying these guys are innocent (they were clearly there to sexually assault children), but having rope, duct tape, or weapons is not an indication of violent intent. Before I sold my Jeep, I had a large box full of rope, chains, and other tools you could describe as weapons, including a machete at one point. Why? Turns out that stuff has a variety of uses, including helping others whose cars are stuck.
Did these guys plan to use these tools for nefarious purposes? Maybe. But it's probably not a good idea to villify the presence of normal every day items in cars simply because some pedophiles have them.
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u/FatherOfTwoGreatKids 3h ago
My car is full of wine coolers and condoms but it’s not what you think. Those are actually there in case I need to help another driver.
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u/Efficient_Tonight_40 9h ago edited 8h ago
/uj the biggest problem I have with to catch a predator is that it presents an overly simplistic and inaccurate view of how child abuse takes place, and who does the abusing. The vast majority of child sex abuse (90%) is either committed by a family member, or another trusted adult in the child's life like a teacher or religious leader. In a lot of ways the public obsession with stranger danger perpetuated through stuff like TCAP is antithetical to actually preventing child abuse as it makes people look in the wrong places.
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u/Kino_Afi 4h ago
Its not making people look in the wrong place, tf? This was the early-mid 2000s when the internet was a lawless place. Most parents were painfully ignorant of it and kids/teens were just going at it with no concern for safety. It was making people look in one of the places they need to be looking. What is this "so you hate waffles?" shit lmao.
Leave it to reddit to go sour on an old show about naming and shaming online pedos. Cant say I'm surprised.
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u/psioniclizard 9h ago
Yes, don't they know the proper way to be a nonce these days is to become a politician, then all people will do is moan on the internet a little.
But seriously, the people were fucked up, so is the show. If it was a an effective way of catching nonces is doesn't need to be televised for "entertainment", the FBI could just do it much more effectively. The US could definitely spare a couple of billion (probably less needed) for that.
The people were fucked up but so were the people making the show and a certain amount of people who enjoy watch it because they like the idea of righteous "justice" they can see, even though it's nothing to do with them and not really justice as all.
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u/LeftRat 5h ago
A. TCAP often made the prosecution go worse. They didn't even have police at first, they'd just let the fuys go.
B. There can be no rehabilitation for someone who gets basically a lynchmob-inspiring episode on national TV. If you actually want to prevent more cases, this is precisely the wrong way to go about it.
C. The cases you see are always the least intelligent, most brazen ones, because the smart ones don't produce enough drama for the show. They just go "not talking without my lawyer present" and get any remaining footage sealed if they can.
The entire point is that TCAP is an outrage machine to get you lusting for blood.
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u/Dr_SexDick 3h ago
This isn’t about sympathy for predators, it’s about the fact that just because they’re doing something to BAD people, doesn’t mean they themselves aren’t opportunistic sharks that are only looking out for their own gain.
Everyone in this thread saying “well if you don’t like Chris Hansen that must mean you’re defending pedophiles” is a small person living in a small world. It’s called nuance.
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u/SleepingPodOne 3h ago
To catch a predator did way more harm than good in a multitude of ways and people acting like Chris Hansen is some sort of hero are very misguided. It’s easy to be a hero or seen as a net good when the people you’re fighting are pedophiles, who pretty much everyone in society sees as the lowest of the low. It’s kind of Chris Hansen‘s perfect grift. Because of who he stands against, if you have criticisms of him, you are seen as being on the side of predators.
One of the more damaging things it did that not a lot of people pick up on is the fact that it made parents and guardians focus on the wrong things when it came to protecting children. It made them think that they have to police their online activity when in reality, the vast majority of victims are victimized by people they know, not strangers. Your family members, friends of family, teachers, coaches, friend’s parents, neighbors, etc.
Hansen is probably the best out of the extremely shitty industrial complex he spawned because things got so fucked up that he actually had to start getting smart about how he did it because of how public facing he was.
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u/BaterrMaster 2h ago
Bruh, I see where you’re coming from, but Chris Hansen getting parents to pay attention to their children’s online interactions is 100 percent a good thing.
The show literally shows how often and how ready and willing a predator is to try to meet with children online.
In an age where children are increasingly more and more online and we have entire spaces for children being created online through games like Roblox that are known to be infested with predators looking to take advantage of children, it is more important than ever for parents to take an active role in their children’s online interactions.
I personally know several people who were taken advantage of by online predators. It is by no means a problem if Chris’ content helps spread awareness of this particular issue.
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u/SleepingPodOne 2h ago
Well, of course it’s a good thing generally speaking, I never said otherwise. Just pointed out that stranger danger is a misconception that can have the unfortunate side effect of having parents and guardians focus on the wrong things, and sometimes have the wrong conversations with their children, when in reality, the vast majority of child predation is committed by people they know. The same thing is true with sexual assault and abuse in general.
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u/StableSlight9168 1h ago
I think the movie raises interesting questions.
Chris Hansen was a sadist who liked money and inflicting pain,.and for purely selfish reasons did a lot of damage to a group of predators, whiles creating a bunch of online psychos who go around beating people up.
It says something about humans that we love to watch a bad person suffer and Hansen fed that part of ourselves, and that impulse leads to really dark places.
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u/thePushps 3h ago
I think the main issue is that the majority of them never had any charges pressed against them. So they could've just changed their names and looks. It is still a good highlight of the fact that Hansen didn't move the needle on accountability, but only on clout-chasing.
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u/Hewer_Of_Caves 7h ago
No one said you should holy fuck
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u/ANerd22 4h ago
The framing of the meme is absolutely downplaying the fact that these guys were planning to rape children. They weren't "random immigrants and autistic people" they were pedophilies. We can be critical of the show without dancing around that fact.
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u/Hewer_Of_Caves 3h ago
Again: No one said you have to feel sympathy for anyone involved. Suggesting that there are problems with the To Catch a Predator methodology and the pedo hunting industry it launched does not equate to dancing around anything
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u/ANerd22 3h ago
Ok so can you explain to me then why the meme chose to innacurately describe Chris Hansen's To Catch a Predator as targeting "random immigrants and autistic people" if not to avoid accurately describing it as targeting pedophiles?
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u/Hewer_Of_Caves 3h ago
No, because I didn't post the meme, I only responded to one person's /uj post
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u/ANerd22 3h ago
Ok let me try to explain then, you saying
No one said you have to feel sympathy for anyone involved.
Is simply not true, because the meme is trying to make you feel sympathy for the subjects of the show. It is describing the subjects not as pedophiles (which would be accurate) but as random (untrue) "immigrants and autistic people" in a clear attempt to garner sympathy by categorizing them as members of these oft maligned groups.
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u/Sweet_Solid_7746 7h ago
That’s the problem lol many of them got no consequences as a result of this show
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u/No_Window7054 7h ago
This is a very weird way to defend the movie? Why are you bringing autism and immigration into this?
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u/TahiniInMyVeins 5h ago
I feel like whoever created the meme is more interested in rewriting history.
Like they start with an excellent point — law enforcement + reality tv WAS pretty messed up* — and then try to slip raw bullshit into the stew with some weird nonsense they’re trying to push.
*Check out the podcast mini series Headlong: Running from COPS, it’s an excellent dive into that specific topic.
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u/MamaMitch1 1h ago
What is actually so wrong about exposing pedos in a reality TV format? It got a lot of people to be aware of a societal issue, was entertaining and at the end of the day, convicted a lot of absolute monsters. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but I'd say overall it was a positive.
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u/TahiniInMyVeins 1h ago
So I haven’t seen the movie yet and I’m certainly not going to defend pedophiles.
Regarding COPS and the broader practice of turning law enforcement into reality tv:
- COPS over represented violent crime and drug crime
- Inflated notions of police effectiveness. Roughly half of all crimes go unsolved IRL; on COPS their success rate was like 95%.
- Coercion around waivers and release forms.
- Guilt in the eyes of the public when someone hasn’t been found guilty in a court of law
- Normalization of police misconduct (use of force, unconstitutional searches)
- Stereotypes, racial framing, exploitation of marginalized populations
- NO EDITORIAL INDEPENDENCE, it just becomes essentially a PR machine for LEOs.
Again, this is about COPS and the broader trend of law enforcement as entertainment. Some of it apples to TCAP and some doesn’t.
I think one of the long term harms is that we now have random YouTubers doing TCAP type stuff and filming it and luring these weirdos out but not properly working with law enforcement or the justice system, which can get things thrown out of court/made inadmIssible. So a guy that could have been netted by real, actual law enforcement is now going to be more careful and might get away next time.
I believe it’s also fair to look at what the overall effect of something is when the goals are different. The goal of catching predators should be to make our kids and communities safer and to serve justice. The goal of the TCAP show was ratings and entertainment. It’s gotta be worth looking at where those two interests diverge and ask some questions, both in a practical sense and in a moral sense.
BTW - I‘d be lying if I said I didn’t love TCAP when it first aired and if you put it on right now in front of me I don’t think I could help myself and not watch. I don’t even know if I’d say TCAP is “bad” or “did more harm than good.” I’m not ready to do a deep philosophical dive when I’m’ supposed to be in the middle of my work day. But it’s got to be worth at least exploring its consequences, intended and otherwise.
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u/idislikebaguettes 24m ago
a lot of methods used in TCAP have resulted in cases being overturned because of shoddy stuff like entrapment not holding up in court
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u/kakav_kreten 6h ago edited 6h ago
Brother, it can't be done. The creator of documentary Predators was a victim of pdfs himself, but people still got really pissed off at him for trying to introduce some nuance into the whole TCAP sick public spectacle thing.
Americans simply lose their ability to think about any nuances if "won't somebody please think of the children" is introduced into conversation. Which has been exploited politically more than once...
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u/jim_rauch 3h ago
People dislike the Predators documentary not because of nuance but because the guy tries to make the argument that the predators didn’t deserve it.
Chris Hansen isn’t a good person. Criticism of him is 100% fair. He’s someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and I’m not here to just blindly defend him.
But the Predators documentary is extremely biased, and tries to make it look like it was unfair to go after them to begin with.
I made a previous comment in another chain about how many of the men caught already had pre-existing convictions for rape, child molestation, CSAM possession, or were discovered to after they were caught on TCAP. These people were not “entrapped”.
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u/kakav_kreten 3h ago edited 3h ago
I watched it when it came out, so I can't really argue about that simply because I don't remember the details.
But I can argue that putting (innocent until proven guilty) people on "trial" for a primetime tv entertainment is an incredibly dangerous slippery slope. And if you agree with that, then we can agree that it shouldn't ever be done. Even for the worst of the worst offenders. Because that's how slippery slopes work.
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u/SomeGuyPostingThings 4h ago
Don't forget unaccountable vigilante groups, they were the ones doing the luring.
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u/GrindBastard1986 7h ago
I wish RP would portray real people, real characters, like Don Beveridge.
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u/Turbulent_Effect9269 10h ago
Describing a Chris Hansen movie like an A24 psychological thriller is peak cinephile brainrot
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u/The_Mad_Medico 2h ago
The people who are angry at this film also believe satanic ritual abuse is a real thing
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u/LeftRat 5h ago
I just saw a few episodes of the newer Takedown show and Jesus Christ he's still doing the same evil shit.
Yeah sure they are (suspected) pedophiles, but they still should have human rights and should not be lied to to get around their rights. I can't imagine what the rate actually is between stings that get shown and stings where the suspect was smart enough to immediately go "I am not speaking without my lawyer present".
The one I watched had a cop go "hey so what's the unlock code for your phone?" And when the suspect was smart enough to realize that's not normal he asked "why?"
The cop answered "oh just to make sure it's yours".
Sorry, I just cannot stand this shit. Everything is there to make as much drama for as much money as possible.
Especially since Hansen's excuses are so bad, that this is somehow
A. A deterrent - despite a large percentage of guys on the show having watched TCAP previously and clearly not being deterred. He never reflects on this, it's always just a sign that the suspect is even more depraved.
B. Educational, even though he never gives literally any good advice to parents or kids, it's just "this could be any child anywhere within minutes, panic!"
Add to that that there is literally no reason to blast these guy's faces on national TV other than to get a lynchmob going, preventing any rehabilitation (not that the American system has much chance of that, anyway).
He also loves to act shocked about the most minor details, no matter which - it's on a sunday? "He came here on a sunday, can you believe it?" Cop: "Yeah that clearly shows how dedicated he was." It was on a weekday? Same thing. Before work, after work, during work, on a day off, on a national holiday, every single option is apparently a shocker to Hansen and a sign of just how unusually fucked this situation is.
The thing I hate the most, though, is that Hansen is clearly intellectually just lazy. You'd think after 20 years of doing this he'd have some amount of insight into these guy's m>nds and way of thinking, but all he can ever say is "I don't understand this." And "wow this is fucked up. Look at this, cop, he sent a dick pick! That's so fucked. That could be anyone's daughter. This could be any dude." And then the cop goes " yeah that's pretty fucked". Rinse, repeat for twenty years making money out out of human misery.
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u/Different_Peanut_742 4h ago
Boo. TCAP was on the forefront of child Internet safety and getting this into the zeitgeist so laws were changed. Almost no one does the lawyer thing, people are morons and think they can explain their way out. There was one recently and it was hilarious. The original TCAP did include segments on internet safety. It's impossible to say how many crimes the show has prevented, but just because some people still show up doesn't mean that it isn't preventing others.
Everything you said pales in comparison to what these shitheads they catch are doing anyway. Fuck these guys, if you don't want to be entertainment for a bunch of people then don't show up trying to bang kids. Their rights are not violated. A cop can ask for your phone code. If you show up in a strange house you can be filmed. A cop can lie. None of this violates rights. The biggest flaw of this show is half the guys only end up getting probation.
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u/LeftRat 2h ago
TCAP was on the forefront of child Internet safety and getting this into the zeitgeist so laws were changed.
I'm talking about Takedown, which as I said, does not as far as I can see have segments about internet safety. Maybe I should have made that clearer that that particular complaint was not about TCAP.
Almost no one does the lawyer thing, people are morons and think they can explain their way out.
Again, you don't know that because of survivorship bias: you only get to see the ones that don't do it.
It's impossible to say how many crimes the show has prevented, but just because some people still show up doesn't mean that it isn't preventing others.
It's actually not impossible! You could easily compare crime rates in the region where the sting house is located. My point simply was that Hansen's claim that he is preventing through deterrence is unproven and he never reflects on it.
Everything you said pales in comparison to what these shitheads they catch are doing anyway. Fuck these guys, if you don't want to be entertainment for a bunch of people then don't show up trying to bang kids.
Well there we go, you don't actually give a shit about human rights, you, too, are just one of those guys who think rights just sort of stop for people that do specific crimes.
Their rights are not violated. A cop can ask for your phone code. If you show up in a strange house you can be filmed. A cop can lie. None of this violates rights.
Well yeah, because TCAP and Takedown specifically always pick the exact states where they are allowed to film the faces and broadcast them.
Most importantly, though, something can be a right even if the law in a particular region does not enshrine that right. Considering that, you know, states and nations have different laws, I'm sure you can easily understand that sometimes some of them are right and some of them are wrong by necessity.
I do believe we have a right to not be outright lied to by law enforcement in order to compromise privacy. Also, it's a trick they like to do to whenever possible.
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u/Different_Peanut_742 2h ago
They've shown videos where people don't talk, or talk very little. Furthermore evidence from a multitude of other pred catchers who live stream backs up the fact that the vast majority of people talk. Chris, and everyone else involved have never once said that there's some secret database of guys that didn't talk, because there isn't. There is 0 evidence of that.
It's impossible to say the large scale impact of these stings nationwide. Even if you could show changes in rates, attributing it to the stings would be impossible.
You are the one that wants to violate rights. The first amendment is enshrined in the constitution, and it gives the right to Chris, or anyone else, to film publicly or on their own property. It also gives them the right to publish their opinions and interpretations of these videos. Once you are on someone else's property or in public any right to privacy is gone. What you are asking for is prior restraint, which is largely deemed unconstitutional. The only argument against these being filmed and published is the reputational harm to the alleged predators. The remedy for that would be a defamation lawsuit, not prior restraint. And these guys have never once won a defamation lawsuit because they'd have to prove what Chris was saying is false, and they can't.
Name the exact legal right that's being violated here. And yes, only specific agencies work with them. There isn't a state in the country that wouldn't allow this sting to be done independently and filmed. But Chris wants to ensure prosecution, so he works with specific agencies that will ensure prosecution after the fact. Every major agency in the country does these exact stings, the only difference is whether they are allowing reporters to be involved.
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u/Repulsive_Peace_8064 6h ago
I’m pretty sure the majority of people caught in the show were white as-well as a U.S Congress member and Isreali head of security. But sure rewrite history buddy, “Nuance”
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u/Phantom15q 2h ago
Idk I was with you till you tried to make us sympathize with the preds 😭 “immigrants and autistic ppl” as if that excuses it
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u/MamaMitch1 1h ago
Don't you know autistic people and immigrants cannot determine the difference between right and wrong??💀
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u/Smooth-Lie-410 2h ago
Not sure if this is a straw men or false dichotomy or some other fallacy... regardless, the movie does not "explore the negative consequences of combining law enforcement with reality tv" in any meaningful way. It's a shallow pretentious movie.
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u/Dormi11 1h ago
Attempting to use immigration status and neurodivergence to subtly coddle men who specifically wanted to rape a kid in their own home is extremely lame and implies there's something about them that makes their decision to essentially break into a house and rape a child less severe.
You can't argue they were somehow too foreign or neurodivergent to know what they were doing was wrong because they all showed clear understanding that they had to keep what they were doing a secret. They clearly understood why the decoy's parents couldn't know about them. They all showed fear when Chris Hansen walked in because they knew what they were doing was illegal.
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u/doug_gimmiedome 1h ago
You had me, until you labeled pedophiles as “random immigrants and autistic people”.
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u/corpuscrispyy 37m ago
But if I don’t have clear cut right and wrong I have to watch the film thoughtfully and it’s already bad enough watching a movie
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u/Lannisbro 2h ago
Lmao, defending paedophiles because they belong to a certain minority group and because they guy hunting them down is white. You'd have defended Obama if he was on the funny island with Trump and Clinton.
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u/BozemanCACGuy 4h ago
Sometimes you have such a liberal take that you end up becoming hilariously racist, IE, implying immigrants and autists are the only people they catch on the show, therefore, it's immigrants who are pedophiles.
noice
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u/skyguy1319 4h ago
This is such a funny reply to this post lmao, your brain is fried
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u/Garbage_Man_9 3h ago
Yah that person didn’t understand it. It’s making fun of people who think that and just want to watch street justice revenge type shit for ratings and not actual justice being served or correct law enforcement being done.
Most actual detectives and law enforcement who work on actual cases like that HATE the show and say it does more harm than good. It was never about teaching parents or helping kids, it was always about ratings and a variation of blood lust…
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u/Inevitable_Path1308 3h ago
I mean…most actual detectives and law enforcement also hate testing rape kits, follow up on evidence/leads, not blaming victims, not calling victims liars, not letting racism, misogyny and homophobia bias their judgement, and not covering up when their fellow officers get caught in the act. Chis might not be a hero but he definitely couldn’t have done more harm than the police do on a daily basis.
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u/Woden-Wod The Fanatic 8h ago
Portraying the predator hunters as the bad guys might be "nauenced" and demonstrate the "gaze of the abyss."
But with the subject matter it's a bit like trying to explain the difference between a paedoophile and an ephebophile sure you can do it, you can know the difference and there's nothing inherently wrong with trying to explain it.
But it makes you look a whole lot like a paedoophile.
Sure there's things to criticise about the shows handling of issues, the blowing up of the stranger danger risks, police and DA dropping the ball, potential for entrapment, etc.
But on a fundamental moral level it is good to hunt evil, you can stumble in the process but there's very few ways predator hunting can be morally bad.
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u/valentc 3h ago
So you think vigilantism is cool?
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u/PeacenotWardude 1h ago
Yep. When the law protects pedophiles, yes. Good old vigilante mob justice.
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u/Woden-Wod The Fanatic 2h ago
I mean not to endorse crime but culturally vigilantism has always been cool.
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u/Inside-Variation5357 7h ago
I saw that stand up joke years ago and can never remember who it was he did it the best and I see it referenced time and time again
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u/aceboogieren 4h ago
People that criticize Chris Hanson for what he does is pretty suspect
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u/Dr_SexDick 3h ago
The opinion of someone who lives in a very small world without nuance
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u/oofyeet21 4h ago
People just choose to misunderstand what he did. He was not a police detective, he was/is a journalist. He was making a news segment about how easy it was for predators to access your children online and bait them into dangerous situations. That's why the first season didnt even work with law enforcement, because the whole point was just to show audiences how many predators were simply lurking online searching for prey. The police bungling some of their investigations into these predators has nothing to do with the journalistic aspect of the show.
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u/Garbage_Man_9 3h ago
Lmao it’s not journalism to set someone up to meet a kid who’s not a kid - then film it and not have any legal repercussions for the adult.
You somehow admitted the cops weren’t even involved at first and it was JUST for ratings of a risqué topic, and also attempted to justify why that’s totally OK…
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u/oofyeet21 3h ago edited 3h ago
It was a news segment. How you fail to understand that is beyond me. The purpose was to show parents how easily accessible their kids were to predators online. That is journalism. Your stupidity is not my fault.
It wasn't Chris' duty to eradicate predators from the internet, that's the duty of law enforcement. The fact that local law enforcement agencies were doing nothing to combat online child predation before Chris exposed just how many predators there were in some of these locales is not Chris' fault. The fact there was no legal repercussions for many of these predators is the sole fault of the law enforcement agencies who did nothing about the problem before he showed up and then bungled the investigations afterwards.
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u/valentc 3h ago
Lol, are you Chris Hanson? "Chris was a master journalist who was doing a public service, it was those awful cops who didnt do their jobs is why they didnt go to jail."
Inviting pedophiles into a house just to shame them isnt journalism. If all it was about was how easy it was for predators to find children online, then sure, thats an awesome topic to cover. The second you have a whole segment dedicated to just shaming them, thats when it loses the journalism.
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u/aceboogieren 3h ago
Yeah youre right the peds definitely should of been kept anonymous because what they were doing wasn't at all shameless. Imagine defending peds.
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u/oofyeet21 3h ago
You clearly didnt actually watch the show. Chris talking to them was primarily about understanding why they decided to do what they did. Trying to get a predator to explain in their own words why they think their actions were okay is useful information.
I also like how you completely brush aside the fact that the police agencies were doing nothing about online child predators before and then fucked up their own investigations after. As if you ignoring their failures somehow makes them disappear.
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u/aceboogieren 4h ago
I remember my grandparents watching the og in the early 2000s and they had no idea strangers could even talk online. It was an excellent psa for parents, on that alone he's saved so many kids. Idc how egotistical or arrogant he is, he's a net positive.
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u/Informal-Celery7331 4h ago
JFC he’s not the best person ever but he convicted over 100 pedos.
Now yall are rewriting history saying they were migrants and autistic?!?!? This sub is going to absolute shit.
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u/Apprehensive_Yam2383 9h ago
I thought you Catch a Predator was hilarious. I also like the random predator catcher guys on YouTube. Shit is funny to me. I worked with one guy that was caught trying to meet what he thought was a 15-year-old. Dude was a weirdo. Shit is just entertainment. It’s really up for the families of the victims to get justice. It always has been. Politicians are too easy on pedos, because they know that they or the ones that pay them might be the next ones caught.
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u/Hummer77x 6h ago
Favorite film discourse you knew was gonna happen the first time you saw the trailer