Turning Predators into Prey

Turning Predators into Prey by Roxanne McDonald

With a sting operation that lures sexual predators from hundreds of miles around and televises the busts, “Dateline NBC” takes on the sex offenders, the potential sex offenders, and the just plain offensive.

There is only one small question I have: isn’t some of the operation considered entrapment? But the answers and the protocol far outweigh the undeserved “rights” of these

questionable individuals anyway, so we move to what a remarkable success the operation and the show are.

That is, it is my belief that when you forfeit your privileges, you sign away such rights/privileges to not be set up, to not be televised, and to not be incarcerated for intent…. And what inane excuses [lies] these guys give Chris Hansen, head commentator and facilitator of “Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator.”

Old, old men in their sixties (old in comparison to the 14-year-old they are visiting) will shrug off their bringing bras and video cameras; married men will say they were just stopping buy for a visit on their way to somewhere else [200-300 miles out of their way], then reveal the condoms or pot or some other sex aid they just happen to have with them as they visit the twelve-year-old; and all different

personalities will drive from other states, will drive in stolen vehicles; will take buses and walk [and then will ask Chris Hanses for a ride home!]; will walk right into the sting house in New Jersey and forego the familiarities and try to get right to the business of deflowering the staff member posing as a pre-adolescent virgin.

We might want to bypass the details that make us uncomfortable. [I have a hard time synopsizing this program without getting as salacious and sick as the men involved get, for example.] We might disbelieve the severity of the numbers who break the codes and laws of our culture. We might prefer to stay in denial.

I have no kids, and watch the show out of sheer intrigue, but I am just stunned by the numbers:

As Levine Breaking News reports, for example, MySpace, one of the most popular internetworking sites on the web, has discovered and deleted the profiles/free memberships of 29,000 sex offenders. That’s TWENTY_NINE THOUSAND CONVICTED sex offenders.

So as fine a job as “Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator” staff is doing, they have more than a manageable workload cut out for them.
And while we might rely on using animal nouns to describe these predators, animals come nowhere near the inappropriate, unhealthy, unlawful, and potentially damaging behaviors that the human animal does.

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