Yes they are criminals because they conspire to commit a crime. As we have seen from the show, they aren’t shy about committing the crime.
For every pervert, there is a victim. I KNOW some of the victims. 13 year-old girls who think it is cool to talk trash to men online. Even sexually explicit stuff. It really does happen. I expect adults to know better.
Note: I have a 13 year-old daughter and some of her friends got busted for it. Mostly Myspace and Facebook stuff.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, a man had the MySpace software installed on his machine, and it indicated, with certainty, that the adult decoy pretending to be a minor that he was corresponding with was not a minor. Suppose, further, than in his communications, the adult decoy exhibits knowledge of events from before she was supposedly born, and uses sophisticated language and usage that would further indicate that she is, in fact, an adult.
Would this man be committing a crime by corresponding in a sexually explicit manner with an adult who he, in fact, thought was an adult all along?
He’s still a moron, I will grant you. A pervert even. But if he was genuinely convinced that the decoy is an adult and the decoy is in fact an adult, how can there be a crime?
I am certain that your daughter wouldn't do something like this, if only because you're interested enough in what she's doing to know things like this. But to ask the obvious question...where are the other parents?
Granted, when I was 13, none of this technology existed. But I can't imagine the having the opportunity (never mind the motive) to "talk trash to men (women, in my case) online" for an extended period of time. Mom and Dad were pretty permissive, but they had a solid idea of pretty much where I was and everything that I had going on.
I guess to me, that's the way to change the moral center of the country....one kid at a time. My kids won't have the motive or opportunity to do stuff like this. Setting that standard and expecting my own kids to live up to it is a good start. Hopefully, their friends will follow the example my kids set.