It would go a little like this.
A man would arrive at a house after chatting to someone he believed was underage, with a plan to have sex or engage in a sexual act. The house would be rigged with hidden cameras and the child would be an actor of age, playing the role of an excitable pre- or young teen, maybe even suggesting they both drank alcohol as a further illicit act. But before things went the way that the guest expected they would, out came TV’s Chris Hansen, an award-winning broadcast journalist accompanied by a camera crew. Tears would be shed, apologies would be given and most often, the illusion of being “free to go” would be followed by an arrest carried out by gun-toting police officers. To Catch a Predator: exploring the uneasy legacy of the controversial TV series Read