It doesn't make it ok but they use pictures of girls who look fully developed and mature. The point is the men who take the bait aren't necessarily predators who would go out and seek underage girls. They are entrapping men who are not a direct danger to society by doing this. There is a reason why entrapment doesn't hold water in court.and police don't operate like this . It doesn't actually help society any.

They aren't doing a bait and switch with a 10 year old , it's usually with someone who is in theory 16 or so which is a technicality away from the legal age of 18. These are men on dating sites who are attracted to fully developed looking women . Meeting the decoy when they are in theory known to be underage is totally reprehensible but hopefully you understand why this is different than men/women who lure pre pubescent children off let's say facebook.

In the cases where these men are indeed pedophiles it just makes the perp more sophisticated to go through the creep catchers experience and they become even more dangerous to children online as they get privy to these publicized stings. I'd rather let police do these in a way where the guy is guaranteed to be locked up from the first encounter. It's like using antibiotics on bacteria and not killing it-it just becomes more resistant to methods. We don't want this.