Each party to the bargain compromises its professional standards. Rather than hold police accountable, “Dateline” becomes their partners  and may well prod them to more invasive and outrageous actions than they had planned. When Mr. Conradt did not show up at the “sting house”  the usual “To Catch a Predator” format  producers allegedly asked police as a “favor” to storm his home. Ms. Conradt contends that the show encourages police “to give a special intensity to any arrests, so as to enhance the camera effect.”

The police make their own corrupt bargain, ceding law enforcement to TV producers. Could Mr. Conradt have been taken alive if he had been arrested in more conventional fashion, without SWAT agents, cameras and television producers swarming his home? Judge Chin said a jury could plausibly find that it was the television circus, in which the police acted as the ringleader, that led to his suicide.

“To Catch a Predator” is part of an ever-growing lineup of shows that calculatingly appeal to their audience’s worst instincts. The common theme is indulging the audience’s voyeuristic pleasure at someone else’s humiliation, and the nastiness of the put-down has become the whole point of the shows.

Humiliation TV has been around for some time. “The Weakest Link” updated the conventional quiz show by installing a viciously insulting host, and putting the focus on the contestants’ decision about which of their competitors is the most worthless. “The Apprentice” purported to be about young people getting a start in business, but the whole hour built up to a single moment: when Donald Trump barked “You’re fired.”

But to hold viewers’ interest, the levels of shame have inevitably kept growing. A new Fox show, “Moment of Truth,” in a coveted time slot after “American Idol,” dispenses cash prizes for truthfully (based on a lie-detector test) answering intensely private questions. Sample: “Since you’ve been married, have you ever had sexual relations with someone other than your husband?” If the show is as true as it says it is, questions in two recent episodes seemed carefully designed to break up contestants’ marriages.