Perverted Justice

Perverted Justice is an online anti-pedophile vigilante organization. Its main method is to pose in online chat rooms as under-age boys or girls and attract adult men. These men are then exposed either on the organization's website or through the "To Catch a Predator" segment on NBC's Dateline show, and subsequently arrested by law enforcement officers.

The organization was found by Xavier Von Erck, who continues to run it. Members of the organization are geographically distributed throughout the United States.

The organization has been criticized for its shadowy methods, its vigilante ideology, and its desire to destroy lives rather than serve justice (ABC News, 10 January 2005; 10 Zen Monkeys, 2 October 2006). The U.S. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has also criticized the organization. Tina Schwartz, NCMEC director of communication, has said: "It's really not the safest, most effective way to combat this problem ... From what I've seen ... they embarrass the people, but I don't know that complete justice is ever served". (Roanoke Times, 22 January 2005)

Julie Posey

Child-safety advocate Julie Posey describes Perverted-Justice's tactics as "a gross invasion of privacy." Posey indicates that she doesn't feel their methods are completely effective, "What it does is embarrass them for the moment... but then they'll go and get a different screen name and know to check things out a little more thoroughly next time" (ABC news, 10 January 2005). Since this comment was made, Perverted Justice have made a partially-successful attempt to convert their vigilante entrapment efforts into actual convictions.

Posey and Perverted Justice founder Xavier Von Erck appeared on Fox News shortly thereafter. Regarding the Perverted Justice website, Posey remarked, "It’s more of an entertainment site, actually. You go there, you click on a link of a picture that takes you to that person’s chat-log and that person has a scale—a sliminess scale as he calls it—and you can rate the pervert from, I think it’s one to five. To me, that kind of gives a sense of entertainment. Anybody that finds entertainment value in exploiting children, I have a problem with it." (Fox News, January 2005)

Harassment of innocent people

According to a group composed of ex - PJ members and other activists, PJ has harassed and terrorised almost 4,000 innocent people since Janurary, 2003.[1]

Wikisposure Project and Absolute Zero

Perverted Justice has recently diverted at least some of its efforts into a "name and shame" hit list of Sex-Offender reform activists and people who they deem to be pedophiles. Simple techniques (public profile scanning, search engines) are used to compile profiles of groups and individuals that are logged to a Wiki site interface.

An officially independent group known as Absolute Zero has made considerable efforts to enhance these exposes with their own articles. Absolute Zero articles are typically followed by a series of comments calling for the killing or raping of subjects by state authorities or prison inmates.

Sources

• "Controversial Web Site Claims to 'Out' Would-Be Child Molesters" by Jonathan Silverstein, ABC News, 10 January 2005
• "The Perversions of Perverted-Justice", 10 Zen Monkeys, 2 October 2006. Retrieved 1 June 2006
• "Perverted Justice", Wikipedia. Retrieved 1 June 2006
• "Online group involved in man's arrest," Roanoke Times, 22 January 2005
• "Website Claims to 'Out' Potential Child Molesters", Dayside, Fox News, January 2005