ShortHand: Should We Support Paedophile Catchers?

Hannah (0:13)

Hello.

Suruthi (0:13)

Hi.

Hannah (0:14)

Welcome to RedHanded colon shorthand.

Suruthi (0:18)

Colon pedos.

Hannah (0:19)

Colon, semicolon, ampersand in Tarabang. Welcome to RedHanded shorthand, where you can listen yourself interesting in 20 to 30 minutes. Sometimes we go over because we get overexcited, but that's our new business, so shut up.

Suruthi (0:34)

So, yeah, you've read the title. You know what this is about. Let's get going. Since the mass adoption of the internet in the late 90s, message boards and social media have created a virtual hunting ground for pedophiles.

Last year, the NSPCC revealed that online grooming cases have increased by over 70% in just three years.

In fact, 2021 was the worst year on record for child sexual abuse online. And the Internet Watch Foundation has said that increased internet use over lockdowns has left children more vulnerable to predatory groups. The FBI has estimated that half a million pedophiles are online every single day. The issue obviously needs to be addressed. The question is, how?

Hannah (1:21)

With police budgets being slashed at every opportunity and more predators looking for children online than ever before, it's almost an impossible task. So it's unsurprising that the surge in online grooming over the past two decades has seen a rise in another phenomenon, vigilante pedophile catchers or pedophile hunters. This tactic is used both by law enforcement and civilian groups. It involves posing as a child online to catch potential predators who make contact. For anyone who spent any time on YouTube, your mind will have gone straight to the best known of all the self-styled pedophile hunters, Chris Hansen. Hansen's segment on Dateline NBC called To Catch a Predator debuted in November 2004 and lit the Tinder box for civilian pedophile hunting. The show featured Hansen working closely with a group called Perverted Justice, which in itself...

Like, if you think you are raining down justice, don't, like, slightly change the term perverting the course of justice, which is an offence. It's illegal.

That makes no sense to me. Like, I get what they think they were trying to do, but actually it just makes me think of perjury.

Suruthi (2:35)

Yeah, it just makes it seem like what a lot of these people end up doing, which is perverting the course of justice.

Hannah (2:40)

Exactly.

Members of Perverted Justice would pose online as underage children waiting to be spoken to by an adult with sinister intentions. When a potential predator began chatting, it would be reiterated that they were talking to a quote-unquote child. And then the fake child would carry on talking to the predator, gathering evidence quote-unquote, and eventually organizing to meet up in real life.

Suruthi (3:04)

So once the potential predator agreed to meet, the stage was set for them to arrive at a house full of secret cameras. There, they would be met by an 18-year-old drama student posing as the child, and later ambushed by Chris Hansen.

Have you watched these?

Hannah (3:18)

I'm not convinced I've seen specifically to catch a predator. However, I've seen something very similar, and there's one particular clip where this guy is at a train station. But the police who are talking to him are British, so I don't think it's the same thing, but it's a similar situation. And it's just this guy and he is terrified, like he's shaking.

And like, it's so uncomfortable.

Suruthi (3:42)

Yeah. We'll obviously get into this later about like, obviously, nobody's saying you should be a child sex vendor on the internet trying to blow children out, but often a lot of the men that they end up sort of baiting into these situations are typically found to have like, quite a lot of learning difficulties and not really understanding what's going on. And there's just a gross level of like, negligence to these shows. But the Chris Hansen one in particular, like it was so like formulaic. And I haven't watched like whole episodes of it, but I've definitely seen clips on the internet. And he'd always like knock on the door while the students since like the 18 year olds inside with him. And he'll like have a pizza delivery or something. So pretend to be like a pizza delivery man or something. Oh, that I have seen. Yeah, yeah.

And as you can imagine, To Catch a Predator was like everybody's like fucking wet dream of a TV show to watch. And so it was an absolute ratings dream. And millions of people tuned in to watch would be sex offenders being grilled and humiliated. And it's clear to see why. To Catch a Predator was easy watching. There was a clear bad guy in every episode. And of course, that everyone can throw themselves behind. There's no sort of ambiguity behind it. There's like, this man, bad. Get him. Like pitchforks, etc.