by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: October 26, 2009

If any television show has given fair warning to parents of the dangers of allowing their under aged children unlimited and unsupervised access to chat rooms and other on line activities, then "To Catch A Predator" tops the list. The legal issues of "entrapment" were well worked out with legal advisers and law enforcement in advance of each show, so that game is over for the men who were caught, and in some cases caught repeatedly.

It is shocking to consider it "entrapment" when it is clear those men were well aware that they were engaging in illegal activity from the time that they stepped into the staged "homes". Some of them had their clothes off, and one of them showed up with his small child in his car. The meetings occurred at the voluntary and free will of the men after they made well documented arrangements on line which included gross and obvious sexual motivations and intent.

The fact that the men willingly and readily engaged in the illegal behavior hints that they were skilled in arranging and having encounters with under aged girls, and gives a chilling indication that there may have been hundreds of other encounters that began in chat rooms that targeted children, and that may have resulted in multiple acts of child predation.

During this day and age, however, there should not be a need for "helpful information" about what children are doing when they are allowed to interact with unknown individuals on line and without supervision. Since the development of keystroke monitoring software and other means of determining what is going on, parents should have been able to check for such obviously inappropriate activity without violating too much privacy. All that they have to do is to look for graphic sexual content and the release of physical addresses!

But, sadly, there is a continuing need for this show to demonstrate for as long as it can, the ease in which sexual predation can come off of the computer screen and into the home, not only jeopardizing children, but unsophisticated adults as well. As far as the issue of children being able to access school, library or friends computers, much more needs to be done by parents to make their older children watch "To Catch A Predator" and let them know that, in real life, there will not be a film crew and law enforcement standing by to provide evidence, to apprehend the predators, or to prevent them from putting themselves and their families at risk.

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