The Corruption and Scandal Behind Pedophile-Hunting Series ‘To Catch a Predator’

PARK CITY, Utah—Jimmy Kimmel aptly summed up Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator as “Punk’d for Pedophiles,” and during its 2004-2007 run, it became a national phenomenon.

A candid-camera sting operation designed to ensnare and arrest adult men who were planning to have sex with minors, the show was a reality-TV trailblazer, taking the formula pioneered by Cops and using it to shine a spotlight on deviants at their most guilty. Transforming host Chris Hansen into a journalistic celebrity and begetting a wave of copycats, it not only exposed an insidious threat that had grown exponentially worse courtesy of the internet, but also turned it—and its thwarting—into prime-time entertainment.

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Predators is a documentary inquiry into To Catch a Predator with an express interest in understanding the appeal of its template, its cultural legacy, its short- and long-term efficacy in curbing pedophilia, and the ethicality of its approach.

Directed by David Osit, it’s a conflicted non-fiction affair, and one made more complicated by the revelation that Osit’s reason for making the film is his own abuse, at age seven, at the hands of a grown-up. Initially teasing a condemnation, only to come away with something less certain and more fascinating, it straddles various lines, and perspectives, with impressive confidence.

To Catch a Predator began as a segment on Dateline NBC called “Dangerous Web,” and it was inspired by an earlier Hansen piece about child sex trafficking in Cambodia in which he confronted an American pedophile on camera and rescued a collection of adolescent girls from horrific slavery.

For Hansen, who appears in the final third of Predators, To Catch a Predator (made in conjunction with watchdog group Perverted Justice) was driven by the desire to bring attention to this scourge and, moreover, to provide audiences—and especially victims of such crimes—with a moment of thrilling triumph. In copious clips, including raw unaired footage, Osit’s documentary demonstrates the effectiveness of the series’ strategy, with suspense mounting as pedophiles are lured into (fake) homes by (fake) teenagers, and climaxing with Hansen emerging from the shadows to face and interrogate the perps.

Because the prosecutable crime committed by these pedophiles was their preceding, profane online chats with individuals they believed to be kids (but were really adult actors), To Catch a Predator’s signature gotchas were merely designed to get these creeps out into the open, where they could be shamed on camera and subsequently apprehended by law enforcement.

This made for riveting and satisfying television, although Predators views it uneasily. Part of the reason for that queasiness is the relationship between the TV production and police—specifically, the fact that both seemed to be leading (and exploiting) the other in less-than-proper ways. It additionally, however, has to do with Osit’s frustration with the show’s general disinterest in figuring out why these men behave so monstrously. Despite Hansen often questioning them about their motives, answers were in short supply.

Furthermore, Predators raises the issue of media responsibility via its focus on a 2006 episode that ended with a Texas assistant district attorney killing himself after police showed up at his house to arrest him for illegal correspondence with one of the show’s decoys. This brought To Catch a Predator’s messy entanglement with police to the fore, and the series lasted simply a few more installments. Nonetheless, it lives on online, where reruns are available and a host of imitators try to duplicate its success, albeit with far more dubious methods. Skeeter Jean is one of those wannabes, and in Osit’s film, he openly admits to using actors to pose as police officers in order to keep his videos live on YouTube—a stunt that speaks to the slippery slope of such click-courting work.

Predators interviews a trio of former To Catch a Predator decoys (one of whom is still shaken by the aforementioned suicide), a Texas DA who argues that the show’s (and police’s) purpose was not rehabilitation but apprehending criminals, and an ethnographer, Mark de Rond, who ponders the show’s allure and what it says about people and society.

On that subject, the film provides no hard and fast conclusions, and it’s likewise incapable of making a definitive statement about “complicity,” which Osit understands also applies to his own investigation. The further it proceeds, the more the director appears interested in slamming To Catch a Predator for its problematic procedures and its shadier progeny, and at least in a late passage about Hansen targeting, on his new program, an 18-year-old boy whose offense wouldn’t be illegal in other states, it reveals the ugly downside of turning thorny legal issues into mainstream amusement.

Still, throughout Predators, there’s a disconnect between what Osit and others wish To Catch a Predator was (namely, a compassionate and insightful look at pedophiles, with an eye toward rehabilitation), and what the show always intended to be (i.e., an exhilarating glimpse at society’s predators getting their nationally broadcast comeuppance).

Similarly, its attempts to court empathy for the show’s pedophiles feels itself a tad manipulative, thanks to the director refraining (except in a couple of prime instances) from presenting their graphic online chats. All of this comes to a head during a final third that features the participation of Hansen, who acknowledges the criticisms leveled at the show, yet contends that they’re ultimately less important than the immense feedback he’s received from sexual abuse survivors who got something valuable—if not outright cathartic—out of its portrait of pedophiles being busted before they could follow through on their sinister impulses.

Predators ultimately views NBC’s hit as neither all good nor bad but, rather, as a reflection of a time, place, problem, and public hunger for entertaining reality and reassuring justice, and it plays as Osit’s highly personal examination of how To Catch a Predator—and his reaction to it, then and now—relates to his own trauma. What he discovers is a knotty thicket of thoughts and feelings that aren’t easily separated or reconciled. “You get everything you want?” a staffer asks as the camera lingers on the director’s face. His silence reverberates as its own answer.