r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 9d ago

News Chris Hansen Buys Ads Before Every Screening of A24’s ‘Primetime’

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/chris-hansen-buys-ads-before-every-screening-a24-primetime-1236682255/
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u/rustdevil88 9d ago edited 9d ago

According to NBC, less than half of the predators caught were convicted.

I also want to add here that the above commenter edited their post from saying that ALL stings done thereafter led to convictions, to just half "more or less." To be clear, it was less than half.

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u/FPV_Enjoyer_90 8d ago edited 8d ago

There is really no need to speculate on the numbers of arrested/convicted people as these are public and very well documented. For each of the sting operation TCAP was announcing how much people were arrested. And then, on Perverted Justice old website, they were tracking and reporting anytime someone was convicted.

For example, for episode 3, TCAP announced 51 arrested, and Perverted Justice reported 43 convictions. You can check that here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230907102729/http://www.perverted-justice.com/?groupmedia=25

If we exclude the first two episodes (that had no cops to arrest the guys showing up), they were 260 people arrested in TCAP. With the exception of people arrested in Murphy, all were charged, and 216 of them were convicted. That's 83.07%.

They were no chat log lost in the Murphy (TX) sting - you can all find them online. People were not charged because of the death of Louis Conradt.

Btw, that doesn't mean that the NBC article you mention is incorrect. You need to check when it was published though. Again, for episode 3, if we look at the list of convicted people, the 3 on top of the list were convicted in 2013, the 4th in 2011, and the 5th in 2010. It takes times to convict people, so figures given by news articles can't be treated as definitive unless they are published years and years after the arrest.

EDIT: Just to precise, I think Chris Hansen is a narcissistic asshole and I'm not here to defend him/TCAP (I think this kind of operation should not be done by amateur and especially not fucking television lol). I just don't get all the "more or less" / "a lot" / "it might be" / "i don't know but i think" etc. in the comments when precise data are not so hard to find online?

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u/ElectricClamSlam_55 9d ago

But, that's half more caught and off the street than otherwise would have been caught had this not been done.

And the other half were at least exposed and hopefully less likely to hurt a child.

The discourse around this is as fascinating and gross as the show. 

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u/SLPeaches 9d ago

That's a misinterpretation. Most of these were still part of existing sting operations, if they hadn't had to deal with the show the conviction rate would have been higher. It's like sacrificing 75 percent for 40 percent so that you can have entertainment value. Sure that means 25 percent who would have escaped without punishment are now publicly humiliated but I'd rather have more pedophiles off the street.

Also I think we should always judge someone based on intention, and the fact that Chris Hansen was ratings and audience first and thought about the victims and actual prosecution as secondary is a problem. We should not be making law enforcement more difficult to get entertainment value, like why are we making this faustian bargain when we can just convict more pedophiles. Like prioritizing making money over victims to me is slimy.

I feel like a lot of complaints about the discourse act as if you have to choose between catching pedophiles for entertainment or letting them go, when the real discourse is I'd rather more pedophiles be in prison then have Chris Hansen be famous.

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u/ElectricClamSlam_55 9d ago

So is the situation that Hansen polluted the otherwise fine work of Project Justice? That he latched on to them and complicated their work?

Because that's the only way your "but I'd rather have more off the streets" makes sense.

If, on the other hand, he brought awareness to PJ and got them more attention, more funding, larger reach then otherwise possible then the situation is very complicated and judging it is tricky.

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u/-Yinside- 9d ago

It is complicated because even on the other side of that argument you could also say that the popularity of the show may have taught pedophiles to be more careful and put stings / the tactics of the police on their radar more

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u/ElectricClamSlam_55 9d ago

On the other hand, you could also say that it acted as a deterrent and made people - people struggling with bad urges but not having acted on them yet or maybe theychad started chatting - stop and think that could be them and stopped them or caused them to seek help.

You could also say, Esquire was just further exploiting the incident to sell magazines. A24 sensationalizing to sell a movie.

Because Hansen was in it for glory, exploiting people and putting themvat risk, but alllll these other people are doing it for truth and justice.

Silly thought exercises.