I think maybe they would be more effective by revealing themselves earlier on and hopefully scaring the offender out of doing what they are doing (I dont really

I think maybe they would be more effective by revealing themselves earlier on and hopefully scaring the offender out of doing what they are doing (I dont really know the psychology of this, I picture there are pathological cases that need real help and won't be deterred anyway and some borderline creeps who just need to be shocked into realizing what they are doing is not cool.) For the latter group, scaring the shit out of them may better serve the actual purpose of deterring crimes against children, vs going all the way to some kind of final sting operation that is only going to marginalize people further and maybe even push them to doing more of this. Unfortunately I think the vigilantes are more about getting a sensational result than actually trying to solve a problem