Endangered Media: To Catch a Predator and The Problem with Vigilante Justice

To Catch a Predator is an American hidden camera reality series in the television news magazine program Dateline NBC featuring confrontations with host Chris Hansen. The series is one of Dateline's most popular segments, and has inspired copycat operations across the globe.

But as with all reality television, not everything is as meets the eye.

"Why Don't You Have a Seat..."

The format is always the same. Adult men are baited by other adults in online chatrooms by online watchdog group Perverted-Justice and arrive at a sting house to meet decoy minors and are typically arrested as a result.

The potential predators include at least 3 teachers, 9 military personnel (including a Staff Sargeant), 1 police officer, 1 firefighter, 1 rabbi, and 1 Taylor University Student. All of the potential predators were male.


The series shows its age with mentions of AOL and Yahoo chat rooms, which were popular in the early 2000s.

2019 brought spin-offHansen vs Predator, a series of hidden camera stings in Fairfield, Connecticut on true crime digest show Crime Watch Daily. Hansen later launched a 2022 streaming subscription service called TruBlu, with the launch of the brand new predator investigations, Takedown with Chris Hansen.

As stated by Hansen, "Pedophiles have a very specific definition: people who are interested in prepubescent sex." That being said, most of the men are considered hebephiles, which is a distinction only made in the medical sense to distinguish and differentiate the specific MOs related to each perpetrator.

Long Island, New York

The first TCAP installment drew 18 men over the course of 2 1/2 days to a sting house in Bethpage, New York. One of the men arrested in the series' 2004 investigation, Ryan Hogan, was an NYC firefighter assigned to Engine Company 237 in Brooklyn, who used a firehouse computer while on duty in order to lure a Perverted-Justice decoy. In June 2006, Hogan pleaded guilty to putting obscene photos of himself on the Internet, as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced to 5 years of probation, psychological treatment, and random polygraph tests.

Herndon, Fairfax County, Virginia

A 1-hour special in November 2005 depicted an operation in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and saw 19 men arrive over 3 days. Among the men caught were a rabbi and an elementary-school teacher, both of whom lost their jobs after taping.

Greenville, Ohio

The premise behind the 4th Dateline investigation was to see if the problem of internet predators was as big a problem in small towns as in big cities. In total, 18 men were arrested over a 3-day period in March 2006.

Fort Myers, Florida

By June 30, 2009, all the cases stemming from investigations in Fort Myers, Florida made it through the court system. Of the 24 men captured as a result of the investigation, 20 were convicted of using the Internet to solicit a child for sex. The 20 convicted men have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. Most of them were also put on sex offender probation.

Fortson, Georgia

The sheriff's department in Harris County, Georgia had arrested 20 men over four-and-a-half days in another sting operation. Shortly after the first half of this investigation aired, the Georgia Governor's office announced a new Child Safety Initiative which would triple the number of special agents in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation dedicated to catching Internet predators and double the number of forensic computer specialists dedicated to helping prosecute computer crimes.

Petaluma, California

In January 2010, Lt. Matthew Stapleton of the Petaluma Police Department credited a To Catch a Predator sting operation with scaring potential predators away from Petaluma. Referring to later decoy operations by local police, Stapleton said, "As soon as they found out that we were from the Petaluma area, they completely cut off communication with us." However, after six days of testimony, a judge dismissed the case against one defendant and criticized Perverted-Justice for engaging in entrapment.

Long Beach, California

TCAP's 8th investigation was a 2-part special resulting in the arrest of 38 men, 1 of whom had previously appeared in the Riverside County investigation.

Flagler Beach, Florida

The 10th investigation was shot in Flagler Beach, Florida. Over the course of 4 days, 21 men were arrested, including a police officer who brought several guns. In one of the cases, a judge ordered Chris Hansen to testify at a deposition.

Bowling Green, Kentucky

When Dateline conducted an investigation in Bowling Green, Kentucky, only seven men showed up to the decoy house, a sharp decline from previous Dateline investigations. The men arrested include a man with cerebral palsy and a man who claimed to be a detective, who was tasered due to his claim that he had brought a gun with him. The taser probes failed to stick, so police chased him into the house, where he was subdued. It was later discovered that he was no longer a police officer at the time and had actually been fired. All men arrested faced five to ten years in prison if convicted.

Controversy:

You wouldn’t think a clip show of child-predators getting apprehended would be controversial. After all, Cops ran for 35 seasons. Criminal justice is the premiere post-modern entertainment, and watching deserving perps come face-to-face with justice never gets old. However, many have shared their ethical concerns with vigilante operations.

Former Dateline investigative producer Marsha Bartel filed a $1 million breach of contract lawsuit against NBC after 21 years, stating that Perverted Justice failed to keep accurate, verifiable records of its online interactions with suspects, which had been cited by some of the arrested men's attorneys who argued they were victims of entrapment.

Perverted-Justice was at one point reportedly paid $100,000, which may have created a conflict of interest incentivizing lead generation. Perverted Justice has an official webpage, but it hasn’t been active since 2009 and functions more like a blog than an official law enforcement website. The landing page to the FAQs are saturated with snark, and the merch they once peddled echo slogans like "squeeze no child's behind." Per their website:

“Entrapment is a situation where you go out of your way to entice a citizen as law enforcement to commit a crime they otherwise would not commit. These people IM our names first. We don't IM them. They choose to say the things they say, to agree to the things they agree to, and to give their phone number for the verification call.”

In 2007, the Collin County district attorney's office declined to prosecute any of the 23 cases brought against those arrested on this installment of the show, citing insufficient evidence. District Attorney John Roach explained that in 16 cases, he had no jurisdiction as the participating decoys and suspects in the online chats were not in that county when they did so, a point seconded by Assistant DA Doris in a 2009 Esquire article. Berry also discovered the Murphy Police Department had done "literally no prior investigation" before making the arrests, thus making most if not all illegal under Texas law. Roach explained the involvement of non-professionals tainted many cases, stating:

"The fact that somebody besides police officers were involved is what makes this case bad. If professionals had been running the show, they would have done a much better job rather than being at the beck and call of outsiders.”

Perverted-Justice also struggled to produce hard drives for investigators in the Thomas Moffitt trial, directly leading to his acquittal.


The show was canceled in 2008 following the arrest and subsequent suicide of Rockwell County, Texas DA Louis Conradt (aka Bill Conradt), which was executed almost exactly as well as the Waco seige.

His sister Patricia subsequently sued NBC Universal in 2007, claiming police raided Conradt's house at the behest of NBC. Federal judge Denny Chin dismissed most of Conradt's claims, but found she had a reasonable chance of proving NBC pressed police into engaging in unreasonable and unnecessary tactics solely for entertainment value, creating "a substantial risk of suicide or other harm." He also found Patricia could prove police disregarded their duty to prevent Louis from killing himself and that NBC's actions amounted to "conduct so outrageous and extreme that no civilized society should tolerate it". An undisclosed settlement was reached that June.

In spite of the negative publicity, other vigilante groups and accounts have since formed and published pedo-busting content such as Pred Hub and Colorado Ped Patrol on TikTok.

How to Watch To Catch a Predator:

Though most episodes of To Catch a Predator are available on YouTube, the lack of mainstream access qualifies the series as Endangered Media. Reruns of the Dateline segments are occasionally broadcast on MSNBC.