Miss America tries to catch sex predators

Source: MSNBC

OKLAHOMA CITY - Miss America can add crime fighter to her resume. Lauren Nelson recently went undercover with police in New York for a sting targeting sexual predators.

Officers with Suffolk County’s computer crimes unit created an online profile of a 14-year-old girl that included photographs of Nelson as a teenager.

“I got to chat online with the predators and made phone calls, too,” Nelson said by phone from Atlantic City, N.J. “The Suffolk County Police Department was there the whole time.”

“The story was that they knew I was 14, and I told them I was cutting school to meet with them,” Nelson said. “I stood outside on the porch, and I would say, ‘Hi’ to them and wave them inside.”

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18299072/

What kind of society is this, anyways?

It might not be your kind of society but I am all for it.

What they're going after are sexual predators. Ones who are going after "jail bait".

Not exactly the same class as a pedophile.

Though in a way, I suppose it's symbolic of what's happened to this nation over the past 6 years....

then go out and stop real child molestation.

Was 12 to young for the pedaphile to take interest in?

I'm not for child molesters, but I'm not for police resorces inventing crime scenes either.

Actually, the police scare me more than the peds.

rather have a child rapist move in next door than a police officer? Not me.

And a 14 yo agreeing to go out on a date with an adult doesn't mean the man intended to rape her.

I suspect he did intend to have sex, and that may be considered rape, but still your analogy is ridiculous.

My comment has to do with orwellian tactics.

I guess your comment desererves me to say, "so do you only throw out the constitution for peds, or are you against it for everyone?"

You first 2 sentences say quite a bit about the reason you don't like this tactic. Hitting a little too close to home??

as a female who wouldn't date a guy under 40, I don't consider myself to be suspect.

Maybe you are projecting though.

version of the 60 minute specials (?) with catching the child pedators on tape, but they are trying to "celebratize" it with using Ms. America.

And after typing that I just have to wonder is it irony or hypocrisy that they are using a beauty pagent winner to catch sexual predators?

pro-activeness on this cause. I was shocked to be watching Dateline recently and they portrayed an old family friend of ours. A man who we had taken our boys out with many times to go wind sailing. This guy was great with the kids, always had something fun planned on the weekends. He would offer to babysit for us from time to time. But because my daughter was old enough to babysit and liked the money, we would always offer the job to her. I couldn't believe it when they showed this guy conversing with a 14 year old boy online, talked about hanging out, having sex and then showed up at the location the boy gave him.

Your perspective changes alot when it comes that close to home. It's one thing for me to have lived through the things that I did as a child. To think that anyone could get that close to my kids just terrifies me. It's not hard. These guys are out there waiting for one of these kids to bite and tell them where they are. I can't see any defense for the predators. If they didn't latch onto the sting operation, they'd still be looking for their next victim, or worse yet, have found one.

Unfortunately it's a very very very small drop in the bucket. Society is cranking out sexual predators at an extremely alarming rate.

All that said, I think it's etremely distasteful and hypocritical to be using Miss America of all people for this cause. Maybe it's her way of compensating for her contribution to the exploitation of women. I guess she doesn't get the irony of it all.

Which is precisely why, after the Pentagon got hit, congress was willing to go along with the USA Patriot Act.

These stings make very little law enforcement sense in general. You're manufacturing a situation where someone crosses the line, and you arrest them. Great. But statistically there's no rationale -- say maybe even half those picked up in a sting were headed down the path anyway in the next year. Faboo. Meanwhile those actually already ON that path are elsewhere, committing crimes, while your resources are tied up.

Your department racks up arrests and convictions, super. If a reporter sets fire to his own building and takes a picture, circulation will go up, too.

Of course, this argument clearly means I'm pro-pedophile, as will be pointed out shortly I'm sure. :eyes:

When they take away our rights, it HAS to start with the peds. The peds are looked down on the most. After the rights are taken away for them, it extends further to groups the people in charge don't like. The city Mayor is a political office, he's also in charge of the city police(thats a big deal some here lack the intelligence to understand. Think hard about that statement - mayor(political) in charge of police(state enforcement of crimes).If you read Rosseau you would know legslature should not have authority over the soverign - people. They only should have the authority to make laws for the soverigns best interest, not carry them out. These police stings are political carrying them out.). He can decide to set people up to be caught as terrorists. Like Dems who are anti-war - a form of terrorism if you ask our CIA.

All they need is a virtual crime scene, not a real one, and intent is now charged as full fledge terrorist. People don't have to commit the act and the actual crime scene doesn't need to exist.

These idiots here on DU, are now citing peds as anyone who dosen't agree with them. You're exactly who does NOT need to have their opinion taken seriously on who ought to be arrested.

And honestly, about this particular case, sorry I know too many people that had sex at 15 and 16 willingly. 14 is a full grown body and not that much of a stretch. 13 is a childs body. There's a differnt quality of ped that go for child body than fully devoloped bodies. Remember lolita where humbert looses interest when she turns 12. Remember how Michael Jackson kept loosing interest when they hit 12-13. This guy is a slimy creep, and a ped. But he's not a ped like guys who do 10 and 6 yo's, and even 13yos. Why aren't they catching those people first.

At this point I figure they'll up it to 16 and 17 to catch more men. And they probably legally can in many states. They'll still be peds. But it's not the same predatator type if they set the guy up with "willing" online participants, than someone that's actually going to go unwillingly molest people.

But I'm not here to defend the guy. He is imo opinon a ped. I was just taking apart how far the police have uped the age now and it's accepted. 14 yo comes onto guy on line, agrees to meet him, guy life ruined as ped. I couldn't give a rats ass. I'm a woman. It doesn't affect me. Other guys here I know it does effect.

What does affect me, is that since they're upping the age now, they're also changing the crimes. If you are anti-war you are a suspected terrorist as far as the CIA are concenrned now. People are being tried for full fledge terrorism for meeting other anti war people now.

This police stings only started with the peds - as everything that takes away our rights do. Trully dumb people will cheer them on, as they planned for. But some of us see that it will be extended to eventually hit other groups. And that's where this is going.

Now go out and choose whether you will mindlessly accept people being put away for crimes they didn't comit - but would have if given the chance, becuase you hate one group of people that this applies to, or whether you don't accept this because ultimately it means nobody in society has to comit a crime anymore to go to prison. Thought crimes are enough.

I agree with the persons whose post I replied to.

I've seen Jim hansen to catch a predator where some of the same guys come BACK. Now that's scary. Some guys never learn their lesson.

Her gum-popping must have been handy during the phone calls.

in hopes of actually getting Miss America and not an underage kid.

I recently saw a refreshingly different attitude about amateur cops on TV. Why is Canada so much more sane than the U.S., anyhow?

Try to find the CBC documentary "Catching Online Predators." A Toronto TV station set up an imitation Dateline which lured pervs to a house where they expected to meet a young girl.

But unlike the US version, the Canadians had to let the pervs go. They didn't have cops waiting outside to provide the last voyeuristic thrill in the mix.

The Toronto Metro Police flatly refused to be involved with this circus. Not only refused, but wrote the TV station a stiff letter, warning that the station could be criminally liable if it compromised an ongoing investigation while trying to play cop.

That's exactly the right attitude. Let the cops do their productive work for society, let the TV hosts do their non-productive BS, and let the amateur vigilantes join the force and strap on a gun if they want to be cops.

"Dateline: To Catch a Predator" is my favorite show to watch and hate at the same time. If you really take a hard look at the show, you will see that the decoys talk to some of these guys for like a month. These guys have definite problems, but what did it take for a decoy to encourage these guys to go over the edge. The police departments who participate in these stings are from small towns in states like Texas and Florida. Both Texas and Florida have vague statutes which allow police to arrest one for "online solicitation" - you don't even have to show up to be arrested. This small police departments have other things to do like police their jurisdiction than spend money and tie up precious resources (like an entire SWAT Team) to catch a few perverts.

The way this show is handled is sickening too. I watched one where they have a whole SWAT team take down some old guy who was limping on to the set. Some of these small departments lure criminals from hundreds of miles away too. There is nothing like luring more criminals into your already understaffed jurisdiction.

The whole show is a perfect combination of a lack of journalistic integrity, a bloodlust thirst for ratings, local police chest thumping, all seasoned with reasonable doubt and a lack of due process.

Now, I guess John Walsh and the Fox Network smelled the blood in the water and they going to do their own "Catch a Predator" show. Having Miss America just added the Paris Hilton effect to this mess. Maybe we can move this show to E! and call it a "Simple Life: To Catch a Predator" starring Miss America and Nicole Richie. I heard Rosie quit "The View", maybe she can be a decoy. I just threw up a little in my mouth.

I am all for good police work, but we have to remind ourselves that police arrests are not entertainment. Good police work is part of the justice system, not tailored around ratings and jazzed up for the camera.

The producers are all high-and-mighty, claiming they help get pervs off the streets, but I think it's just a bunch of titillating bullshit that creates more pervs than it destroys.