The Video Vigilante
Brian Bates, or “The Video Vigilante,” has spent 15 years exposing and documenting street prostitution in Oklahoma City. He lurks around an area of south Oklahoma City known for frequent prostitution, waits for a prostitute to get into the car of a customer and follows it to their destination. Then, videotape engaged, he opens the driver’s side door and shouts, “You’re busted, buddy!”
Then he places the video on YouTube’s John TV channel, Bates’ website, JohnTV.com, or his Facebook page or Twitter feed. He sometimes send the links to the guilty men’s spouses. Sometimes, knowing this, his prey beg for mercy, which is never forthcoming.
A two-part Ethics Quiz:
1. Is this admirable behavior? Ethical behavior?
Street prostitution is illegal. It is indeed ugly, and inhibits commerce and lawful activities in locales where it is common. The police are obviously not effectively enforcing the law. Yet vigilantism, of any kind and for any reason, undermines order and the rights of citizenship, as well as risks interfering with official law enforcement.
Does an individual have a right to privacy when engaged in an illegal activity originating on a public street? Is Bates performing a kind and responsible act by alerting spouses to a marital betrayal of trust that may also have serious health implications?
2. Is your opinion changed by the fact that Bates makes money selling the licensing rights of his videos to TV production companies?
I confess to being conflicted about “The Video Vigilante.” I applaud efforts by citizens to be proactive in the prevention of crime of all kinds, and I do not think prostitution should be legal. But I think vigilantes are untrustworthy, and this particular vigilante, who describes his confrontations with johns and their hookers as giving him “a rush” may be more voyeur than crusader. The fact that he also makes a profit tips the scales for me, I think.
Verdict here: unethical.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m wondering if where the prostitution takes place alters your view. Would his actions be more ethical if the known hunting grounds were in a suburb where children might observe at least the pick-up part of the transaction (not to mention scanty clothing)? I’d be interested to know what his point is – if he’s “saving my neighborhood” he might be onto something. If he’s just torturing guys out to have a good time and spend a little cash on a willing lady and the location of the transaction is isolated, that’s a different story. I do agree with you, however: unethical.
I think he started out in the “saving my neighborhood” mindset. Now he seems to do this for a living and he does it for the rush. I think that transformation is probably common among someone who does this too long.
I think videotaping it and placing it on YouTube is fine. It is on public streets in a residential area. Opening the door and sending copies to the men’s wives is over the line for me. If one of those men were to shoot him, he would have no legal recourse. He is breaking the law and not merely trying to publicize the problem anymore. He is being vindictive.
I agree that one of the fundamental problems with vigilantism is that the person driven enough to be a vigilante will eventually cross the line.
“He who fights monsters should take care he does not become a monster.”
Personally, I question any law that purports to help someone by making a criminal of them.
Such laws should be questioned. Usually the answer, if it’s a responsible law, is that the conduct seriously affects society and others besides the criminal. Prostitution, for example, exploits women, leads to abuse, encourages mysogeny and discrimination, and destroys families. There is no question in my mind that American society would be meaner, unhealthier, cruder and less just with legal prostitution than without it. And the only evidence we have, based on the past, is that I am correct.
Hmm…The exploitation and abuse are directly related to the illegality, he encouragement of mysogeny likely also falls to that same cause, the discrimination comment is out of left field, and the destroying of families is unsubstantiated bull. Basically, your blowing smoke over a behavior you feel icky about.
And the only evidence we have, based on the past, is that I am correct.
Nevada disagrees with you. The prohibition era disagrees with you. I’m trying to figure out what you evidence actually is.
Nope.
1.The exploitation and abuse are inherent, and not exclusively related to the illegality.
2. The practice is inherently mysogenist, The epithet that “women are whores” is only logical if women are whores; the more women that are whores, the more accurate it is. The occupation, when l;equal, is a lazy path of least resistance for women who have limited employment opportunities, and there is no societal motivation to do something else. It is an inherently degrading profession, but unlike others, a wholly unnecessary one.
3.The destruction of families is hardly unsubstantiated. Use of prostitutes is related to adultery, and adultery is a leading cause of divorce and separation.
4. The comparison with Prohibition cuts the other way: we’ve seen what cities and society were like when prostitution was largely legal, and it was hell. Prohibition has its lessons (though most people see the wrong ones); so did legal prostitution.
5. “Nevada disagrees!” THERE’S a persuasive authority. Nevada disagreed about legalized gambling, too—look at Atlantic city before legalized gambling, and now.. One Nevada—fine, at least you can escape it. 50?
The argument for prostitution, like the argument for universal legalization of drugs, is the libertarian’s Achilles heel. Gee, it SHOULD work, but the fact is that we know it won’t. It turns communities to crap.The government sometimes just has to draw a line and stand for the proposition that some things are bad for you, us and the country, when they are. Having prostitution illegal makes it much less likely that my daughter/mother/sister/ grand daughter end up as prostitutes—that makes it a sensible, ethical policy.
1. Abuse and exploitation are only inherent if you also agree that abuse and exploitation of men is inherent in coal mining. Yes, there can be abuse, but it is not necessary.
2. You again, seem to be using inherent in a nonstandard way. Also, you have an odd definition of mysogeny. It’s mysogenistic because lazy women can do it?
You attempt to extrapolate truth from a subjective statement. By the same logic, it is racist to allow black men to eat watermelon and fried chicken. Who cares if they like them?
You commit mysogeny by stating that there is no societal motivation for women to not be whores. You are falling prey to the same fallacy that causes religious people to say that without God, there is no reason not to rape and pillage.
You then move on to aver that it is degrading, begging the original question.
I’m sure there’s a case to be made for mysogeny, but you failed 4 times.
3. Women who have sex before marriage are related to adultery, and adultery is a leading cause of divorce and separation, therefore, women who have sex before marriage contribute to breaking up marriage, and this behavior (sex before marriage) is bad.
4. Give me an example of legal, regulated prostitution that has been hell. Allowing anyone to own any weapon would be a hell society, but that’s not an argument that we should ban all weapons.
5. So…you want to escape a state because it doesn’t have any issues? Cop out.
Closing:
One unsubstantiated claim after another. We don’t know it won’t work (you’ve admitted it has). We don’t know it turns the communities to crap (again, Nevada).
You follow that up by begging the question (assuming prostitution is necessarily bad for you).
And then you end it with the Not With My Daughter argument. They shouldn’t have sex either, or go out in downtown without a male escort (it’s dangerous!).
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, when you run into the ick factor or your own dogma, you throw reason and out the window. You wouldn’t make the Not With My Daughter argument about owning guns or school systems banning behavior in the home. You wouldn’t stand for a congresswomen defending fair criticism by calling it mysogenistic. You wouldn’t say that since the tea party is associated with racism, that the tea party should be banned.
You are ethical, which makes your blind spots all the more glaring.
Not to sound like Rush Limbaugh listeners (though I am occasionally one), ditto Chase Martinez.
Question for Chase, Jack and other readers: Where does that quote come from? Guess I am admitting some basic ignorance here…
It’s a common re-phrasing of Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Hmm…. there’s a point to be made here about pre-crime. It sounds like this guy is like the pre-cogs from Minority Report.
I think in most jurisdictions the crime is complete once a “contract” has been arrived at—that’s why it’s called “solicitation” of prostitution. In the old days, you had to be caught completing the act, and undercover cops actually had to have sex with prostitutes to arrest them.
Right, but driving someone somewhere doesn’t fit the bill unless the contract was made en route, which doesn’t fit the bill.
In most cases, getting in the car is regarded as an agreement, and much of the time, the prostitute will back that up to avoid more trouble.
At the apartment where I use to live prostitutes use to gather on the access road between the parking lot and rt one. We would call the police and no matter what they did the prostitutes were still there night after night. Nothing changed until a neighbor started hanging out in the parking lot and taking pictures of the cars and their licenses plates. Once that started everything dried up and the prostitutes disappeared.
Forgetting for a moment whether or not it’s admirable or ethical, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear one day that this guy was found in the street with a bullet in his brain.
Prostitution & Farming are the two oldest profesions in the world. Which one is actually the oldest would more than likely be prostitution, stemming back to the caveman (& cavewoman) days, where food was possibly the first form of payment, or vysa – versa. Point being, men & women are going to commit adultery either bought on the street, a meeting between co-workers at a no-tell motel, all the way up the social ladder and back again, from “Preachers to Presidents”! Why video someones mother, or father, aunt, uncle, daughter or son? These videos break up families, embarrass people, let alone, possibly losing their job? Why not expose the real cause of American poverty in minority neiborhoods? Why not expose the reasons for overspending in todays government? Why 4 out of 5 public school teachers, “DO NOT KNOW HOW TO TEACH”, yet always want more money. Seems they are no different than the people on welfare because they were not educated by these so called “Teachers”. Our american farmers are paid on how many bushells, or how well their cattle yeild. Maybe thats how a teacher should be paid? How well they “DO” their job.
Lets take control of our government removing “FREE LOADERS” & “POLITICAL PARASITES” that have been appointed, not voted into thier office by tax paying citizens, and “WE”the tax payers, vote, to decide goverment employee incomes in the same manner “Blue Collar” workers earn their income, Go to work, clock in, out for lunch in which will be paid for with cash, or a personal credit card. No more fringe benifits at our (the tax payers) expense. Why dont you spend more time trying to make things better, instead of throwing stones at people, that in one way or another, are just trying to survive with what God gave them.
If I was to judge “YOUR” actions, I would have to call “YOU” a pervert. Let the authorities do their job. If you want to make your neiborhood a better place, open up a community center and teach these people about dignity, self pride, setting and acheiving goals they can be proud of. m
Wall of text: Check.
Random capitalization and quote marks: Check.
Incoherent statements: Check
Bumpersticker statements that fail to look at consequences: Check.
I love how this is supposed to be framed within ‘ethics’ yet the author who posed the question never even bothered to contact me ask any questions, gain any insights etc.
Why should I have to do that? I had NBC and Reuters reports, plus the evidence of your own site, the Smoking Gun and YouTube. If something is inaccurate, or you want to argue why what you do is ethical after, go ahead. You have a forum. Use it.