Dark Justice: Inside the World of Paedophile Hunters
Seeing as I'm not on social media, this will be my only plug: this week sees the publication of a new book based on four years of embedded fieldwork with an unusually prolific group of paedophile hunters – people like you and me, who tackle a menacing societal threat by baiting, exposing and then humiliating and helping to incarcerate child predators.
The project is tied to a documentary by the American filmmaker David Osit: Predators. Having premiered at Sundance it was nominated as one of the 10 Best US Documentaries of 2025. It considers the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the TV reality series To Catch A Predator and the world it helped create.
Some early (over-the-top) reviews:
'Dark Justice is an ethnographic barnburner, a moral bombshell and a narrative page-turner all rolled into one. It will make you revise all your cherished beliefs about evil, justice and citizenship in the age of out-of-control social media.' – Loïc Wacquant
'Mark de Rond may be the best writer in social science today. He is also one of the most intrepid practitioners of deep ethnography. He describes a world full of dangers - violent, criminal-legal and moral - where the wrongs are emphatic but doing something about them risks even more wrongs.' – Randall Collins
'This book is incredible! In Dark Justice Mark de Rond tells a gripping account of his time with a group of citizens who take it upon themselves to hunt online child predators. Writing like a novelist with his stream-of-consciousness style, he delivers an unflinching examination of what motivates people to personally fight child exploitation.' – Katy DeCelles
'Mark de Rond's newest book pushes us to engage in broader conversations around citizen activism and accountability as we absorb a brilliant and uncomfortable look into the largely invisible work done by paedophile hunters.' – Tina Dacin
'Dark Justice is a deeply insightful and important exploration of a morally ambiguous world. This vivid narrative is a treatment of the good, the bad and the ugly as told by a compassionate narrator who draws on four years of participant observation.' – John Van Maanen
'Dark Justice - an unflinching account of those dedicated to exposing and confronting paedophiles - is not for the faint of heart. This extraordinary study offers a raw, visceral exploration of some of society's most challenging issues and will leave a lasting impression on all who read it.' – Sally Maitlis
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Mark de Rond
Professor
Mark de Rond Person
Cambridge
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