In the video, titled “To Catch A Predator”, by Dateline NBC, Chris Hansen confronts potential child predators from all walks of life, and a variety of ages. Mr. Hansen reveals the tactics used by child predators, to manipulate young, teenage girls and boys. This video is one you want to turn away from, yet cannot stop watching. “To Catch A Predator” is truly an eye-opener for us all, and a must watch for parents with young children. Through watching the video “To Catch A Predator”, I learned that child predators are very difficult to identify in our society.
The video opened my eyes to how predators find their victims and the lengths predators will go to find a willing, underage child. “To Catch a Predator” also showed that sting operations are being used to catch the predators and hopefully keep them off our streets and away from our children. Child predators come from all walks of life, and cover a wide range of ages. They are college students, elderly men, construction workers, and even police officers, to mention a few. Some of these men have families and successful careers.
Child predators can be found in all segments of society and come from all socioeconomic backgrounds. They often operate in relative anonymity and in secrecy. They are not only willing to drive miles in order to meet their victim, but they are consistently willing to sacrifice and jeopardize their freedom, families, careers, and perhaps social status simply to feed their sickness. The predators find young people in chat rooms and in online gaming programs, strike up a conversation with them, then lure them in. They seem to know exactly what to say to get this child to agree to most anything.
In this video, a sting operation is used to help catch the potential predator. The police officers that are part of the sting go into chat rooms posing as young teens. Once the police officer posing as a child makes contact with a child predator, law enforcement authorities begin to compile information needed for prosecuting the child predator from their chat logs. Many child predators tell the “teen” that they know their behavior is wrong and against the law. Nevertheless, they continue. Child predators will give cell numbers and agree to meet the “teen”.
Once the predator agrees to meet with the “teen”, Chris Hansen and his team set up their equipment to record the encounter. When the potential predator arrives at the agreed upon location, the decoy, posing as the teen, greets them. Chris Hansen and his team steps out to confront the child predators. Some of these men immediately admit they were wrong and seem to be truly sorry, while others just deny it. Once the men leave the house, the police officers step in to make the arrest. They are then taken into custody and questioned.
In some cases, but not all, they are charged with felonies and spend several years in prison. The video does not disclose what would motivate an individual to commit such crimes. Despite the threat of imprisonment and many other dangers, these predators are willing to losing everything while showing no regard for their victims. These victims are our children. Talk with your child about this epidemic, warning them of the dangers. Be aware of what your child is doing while on the Internet and with whom they are speaking. At all costs, we must protect our children from these child predators.
