This is not the first time Ritter has been in such trouble.

According to reports, Ritter was charged in a June 2001 Internet sex sting in New York, but that case was dismissed.

He had been charged with attempted child endangerment after arranging in an online chatroom to meet what he thought was a 16-year-old girl at a Burger King restaurant. The girl turned out to be an undercover policewoman.

Ritter said the criminal charge was a smear campaign in response to his criticizing U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The New York Post reported Ritter had been caught in a similar case involving a 14-year-old girl in April 2001, but that he was not charged.

From Wiki:

Charges included "unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation". Ritter faces up to seven years in prison.

Overall I find that our laws and slightly hysterical reaction to CHILD ABUSE OMG!!! is similar to our reaction to TERRA TERRA TERRA!!!

people are employed doing nothing but portray themselves as underage people in order to catch perps

Yes, and some of the tactics they stoop to, and their own clear psychological problems, are highly problematic to say the least. Not to mention the constitutional problems they create. They're vigilantes, plain and simple. If you read some of the reports about these groups I doubt you'd be OK with it.

This is hard to even write about because even questioning all these "BUT THE CHILDREN!!!!" laws marks you as a "pro-child-rape" or something.

Here's a profile of the group that does most of the dirty work (so to speak) for that show, it's called Perverted Justice. The founder talks about how he hates his father, has launched sting operations against people who criticize the group, and requires complete control over his employees' private lives. He was barred from editing Wikipedia after flaming critics of the group and accusing them, and the editors of Wikipedia, of being pedophiles:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070821/170354.shtml

Two years ago, ex-employees of the show filed a lawsuit complaining of the ethical problems involved:

In May, in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed by a former "Dateline" employee, Marsha Bartel outlined a series of ethical misgivings about "To Catch a Predator" that some media critics have raised themselves. Among other things, Bartel argues that paying Perverted Justice for its services gives the group "a financial incentive to lie to and trick targets of its sting." She's not the only ex-employee, incidentally, to discuss the show's underlying methods. Former "Dateline" anchor Stone Phillips has said that in many of the contrived Internet chats, "the decoy is the first to bring up the subject of sex."

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/08/nbc-datelines-c/

Then there's this:

While some police departments enjoy the publicity that Perverted Justice brings, many in the criminal-justice field aren't so sanguine about the group's tactics. "We can't let anyone who wants simply become law enforcement," says Mike Iacopino, co-chair of a task force on sex offenders assembled by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "This is no different than letting a guy with a six-shooter walk around protecting your hometown." Indeed, many child-protection agencies express a disapproval of Dateline. "We've seen numerous cases that would constitute entrapment, and then Chris Hansen shoves a camera in these guys' faces and they end up convicted on the basis of the camera confession," says Brad Russ, director of training for Internet Crimes Against Children, a federally funded task force that declined to partner with Dateline. "The whole thing is a perversion of the way the criminal-justice system is supposed to operate."

these charges will be dropped faster than a hot potato, once there is no more free publicity to be gained from it. of course, the city will then face a civil suit for wrongful arrest, among other things.

since none of the parties involved will be personally liable, they don't care.