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Cops, charges, and still some anxiety

NBC's Chris Hansen on the latest installment of 'To Catch a Predator'
Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen
Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen

Chris Hansen answered a few questions from MSNBC's Dan Abrams on the latest installment on "To Catch a Predator."

Below, Chris weighs in on the authorities' involvement in the Perverted Justice project, and on still being anxious about the confrontations.

On how the authorities got involved in the upcoming repot
DAN ABRAMS, HOST, 'THE ABRAMS REPORT' ON MSNBC:
  How did you get the authorities involved this time as opposed to the previous occasions? 

CHRIS HANSEN, DATELINE CORRESPONDENT:  Well, it was really Perverted Justice who had contact with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and they pretty much worked it out.  We did our usual investigation in the house. 

Perverted Justice is the group which supplies the decoys and the volunteers to do this. Perverted Justice let the sheriff's department know when a potential predator was coming.  After we talked to the men, and once they left the house, it was really up to the sheriff's department at that point to make the arrest and make the charges stick. Perverted Justice would later give the sheriff's department the chat logs so they had some more information.

On police making the charges stick
Abrams: 
In the past, there have been problems making the charges stick.  If I recall correctly, only one or two of all the people who you have caught on camera have actually been charged with crimes. 
Hansen: In the last case in Fairfax County, Virginia, at least four people are being prosecuted either by the district attorney's office or by military prosecutors.  What happened in that case, Dan, was that there were some jurisdictional questions as to whether or not the district attorney's office could take the cases. Some of the guys weren't in Fairfax County when they were on their computer actually having these conversations— the alleged solicitation, if you will, the actual crime. 

Those issues in some of these cases were worked out, so now we are seeing prosecutions. But obviously, you are right— if you have the police outside and they can react to this in real time, it's a lot easier to make a case.

Are confrontations getting easier?
Abrams: Is it getting easier for you to confront them?  I would think that it's a little bit uncomfortable. I’m recalling the time you gave a naked guy a towel. I would think that it's generally uncomfortable to be confronting these guys.  Is it becoming almost second nature to for you to say "Hey, sit down" ?
Hansen:  Well, you know it's interesting because the first guy to walk in this time— I was absolutely just as anxious as the very first time we did it.  It really doesn't change as much as you think. As thorough as you are with your research and your background on who this fellow is, you really don't know what this guy could do when he walks in the door.