Creep Catchers doesn’t go far enough

KAMLOOPS — Creep Catchers has now set up shop in Kamloops.

If you have somehow managed to avoid the online furor, Creep Catchers is a vigilante organization that dupes potential child predators into meetings, records the meetings, and lays the entire interaction out online.

Already in the past few weeks, a pair of Kamloops men have been made subject to the organization’s makeshift exposes.

The men are tried and convicted in the court of public opinion, with thousands of people expressing their disgust and condemnation.

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The only thing missing is a public castration.

The broad intentions of those who volunteer for Creep Catchers are noble, and the vacuum that they are trying to fill shouldn’t be ignored.

It is alarmingly easy for them to post an ad, message back and forth with the person who answers, and set the stage for the dramatic removal of the shroud.

They are fishing, and the lake seems well-stocked.

The problem is, after that public shaming blows over, what happens next?

The court of public opinion for child predators is not justice.

Is the evidence collected by RCMP, compiled into a report, and then handed to Crown prosecutors to approve charges?

Does the case go to trial, where both the Crown and defence have the opportunity to present evidence?

Is the accused given the chance to be judged by a jury of his peers?

If not, then it’s not justice.

And if these accused are as guilty as Creep Catchers and the hoard of keyboard jurors feel they are, then justice will certainly come to them in prison.

As a father, of course I worry about child predators.

But I am equally worried about raising my children in a society where justice is handed out on Facebook instead of in a court of law.