Although a movie has already been made about the life of John Walsh shortly after the tragic and untimely death his son Adam back in 1981, down the road there's a good chance we'll see another film about his life as one of the world's most determined, real life crime fighting super heroes. We can't speak highly enough about John Walsh, he's an amazing guy. After twenty years on the Fox airwaves as host of America's Most Wanted, Walsh and his team have chased fugitives around the world, hunted down child predators, and brought to justice some of America's most wanted criminals. On Saturday, May 17 at 9pm on Fox, America's Most Wanted celebrates its 1000th capture after catching wanted murderer Dwight Smith, who fled New York City after shooting a victim in a real estate deal gone bad.

Just a couple of days ago, The Deadbolt was honored to get the chance to talk to John Walsh again on a conference call to help celebrate AMW's 1000th capture and to also get insight into how America can become a better place and how we can all work together to reduce crime.

THE DEADBOLT: Is there any way that the correlation between respect and retribution can be redefined so that murders, like that of Doug Mills in the 1000th capture episode, can be minimized?

JOHN WALSH: Absolutely. You’ve hit the nail on the head. I think this is a huge part of the challenge being a parent, being a member of society today. I really am a big critic of the thug life, of glorifying it and of glamorizing it. I know we did that with mobsters. I know we’ve done it for a lot of American crime. But the revenge and retribution, we are seeing record amounts of juvenile crime. Nobody solves it with a fistfight anymore. Now it’s, "I’m going to get an automatic weapon. And in order to be cool and respected if a guy disses me or disrespects me, I’m going to shoot and murder him, murder a part of his crew." Gangs are becoming a huge part of people’s lives and your question is so right on, because I think as a society we’re ignoring this "retribution" and all of this attitude that everything needs to be solved by a homicide or by a gun. And the amount of violence in one weekend in Chicago - 30 people being wounded, 8 people being murdered in gang retaliation, in drug dealing retaliation - all of it is interrelated. And I just think people have to come to grips with the fact that we just have to realize that the shootings at Virginia Tech, 32 people in one day to Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, everywhere, you’re talking about it. The level of violence and automatic weapons are out of control.

THE DEADBOLT: Given the amount of reality shows on the air, is it more of a challenge these days to make sure the objective of America's Most Wanted doesn’t get watered down?

WALSH: That’s a good question. When Fox approached me in 1987, we aired in February of 1988, they said, "How would you like to be the host of the first reality television program?" And I asked them, "What is reality television?" We were legitimately the first, we were modeled after Crime Watch U.K., which is a BBC show catching fugitives in Europe and Great Britain for forty years. I don’t even know if you can call them reality shows. You know, you look at some of them and they’re not even reality, they’re not dealing with reality. I think we try really hard on America’s Most Wanted to be contemporary. We’ve been on twenty years and it is about ratings and the show making money and good advertisers, but I think you have to do it with dignity and integrity. We’re the fourth largest visited website in all of television behind American Idol and Deal Or No Deal. I think Lost is the other one ahead of us, but I’ve tried very hard over these last twenty years. Yeah, we have to change our graphics and be contemporary, be a little bit edgier, but not lose the purpose of the mission. Not dumb down into that world of garbage reality, exploitive reality. So many of the reality shows exploit the weaknesses of people, either their ignorance, their handicaps, their preferences - it’s very disturbing. But at AMW, you know, I love doing the show and I’ll do it as long as the public watches it and Fox has been a great supporter and wants to keep it going. I don’t subscribe to any type of reality is television, I think you have to maintain some type of integrity and dignity.

THE DEADBOLT: Have you been inside the U.S. Marshals’ new custom RV?

WALSH: I haven’t. They used that command center. They put together this custom mobile command center, which is a great idea. Sprint does that for hurricanes. Canon does it for photo ID for children and goes around the country. The first time the Marshals ever used that was a couple of weeks ago when we caught our 1000th capture. They were outside our studios in Washington, D.C. and utilized that mobile command center. I’m dying to see it. I think it’s a great idea and its time has come for all different police agencies. But I’m waiting to see how tricked out it is. It’s a huge advantage to have the Marshals pull up to our studio and mobilize. They’re the guys that really rolled with local police in Richmond to get Dwight Smith and a big part of that was that mobile command center being outside our studio. Good idea. It was a brilliant idea.

Celebrating AMW's 1000th Capture with John Walsh Page 2