Depths Of Self-Destruction

Watching the "Dateline NBC" expose on sexual predators, in which men who solicit sex with minors are lured by an actress and then confronted and arrested, is a deeply disturbing experience.
What struck me most was the level of recklessness displayed by these men. Quite a few created screen names that included their year of birth, such as 1951, in one case, while seeking out girls who said they were 14. The inescapable conclusion is that they clearly, on some subconscious level, want to be caught. There is no greater stigma in today's society than that of the child molester, and appropriately so. And yet somehow that doesn't deter these depraved people from sinking into this crime.
It has to be something more than just low intelligence. More likely a deep compulsion to not only take part in the crime but to be punished for it.
None of this is to suggest that the punishment of these dangerous people should be diminished one iota. They need to be stopped.
If the Dateline NBC series has effect of deterring these predators through the specter of notoriety and shame, the show has done a great public service. Still, in today's society it should already be obvious to anyone that there is no expectation of privacy on the Internet and that law enforcement is aggressively on the lookout to protect minors, and yet this crime persists. It may well be that, for some, the need for self-destruction is so overpowering that the element of risk only adds to, not detracts from the allure.