One group that claims to catch out paedophiles is Dark Justice, which was founded in 2014 and is run by two men based in Newcastle upon Tyne. They work by creating false online profiles through which they pose as girls and boys under the consensual age of 16. The duo then wait for messages and immediately inform the online ‘abuser’ how old they are – sometimes saying they are as young as 11.
In most cases the conversation quickly turns sexual with ‘predators’ requesting meet ups and implying they want sex. The men also often send sexually explicit pictures and videos. After confirming a time and place to meet, the duo go to meet the man in question, preform a citizen’s arrest and present them with all the evidence. They film the whole incident before posting the footage online and making it available to the police.
So far they have assisted in 163 arrests, 82 of which have led to convictions, of which half led to a custodial sentence. Job well done, I would say. However, some criticise Dark Justice for using entrapment, and for potentially causing the family of the alleged predator a lot of distress by making the videos public.
I wanted to have a look at what Dark Justice do, to gain a deeper understanding of the moral issues attached to it. As soon as I typed their name into YouTube a whole list of videos came up. I watched about 10 of them, and they made me angry and nauseous.
The men – who appeared to be aged from their mid 20s to their 70s – were almost always apologetic after being caught out. Their excuse was usually that they were not planning to have sex, and you could see the dread on their faces when they realised what was happening.
But did I believe they were sorry? No! And did I feel sorry for them when they became scared and vulnerable? No!
But I did feel a pang of embarrassment for the wives, girlfriends, children and families of these men. They are not to blame for what the men have done, and yet the repercussions of these videos going viral will undoubtedly have an awful impact of their lives. I can’t imagine how terrible it must be to find out you have a paedophile in your family, particularly online!
So, although I admire the work of Dark Justice, there must be a way to keep the families out of it. Perhaps they could record the incident but blur out the faces, or just hand the footage to the police. However, as someone commented underneath one of the videos, the whole point of identifying the man is so that if the police fail to act, at least neighbours with children get to know who is living next door to them etc.
It’s certainly a tricky moral question. I am not certain on how to keep the safety and anonymity of the families yet, but it’s something I believe they need to consider in the future.
Although I am concerned about the families, I also think that the work of groups like Dark Justice is important. These volunteers don’t get paid, and are contributing to hundreds of arrests.
There are around 75 groups like Dark Justice operating in the UK, and together they act as a deterrent to any potential predator who sees their videos. Hopefully the prospect of all that shame and embarrassment will make them think twice before contacting an underage child for sex.
Keeping our children safe is the main goal, so within reason can doing whatever you can ever be a bad thing? What do you think? Please post your comments.