Baltimore Protests and Riots

[The Romulan Republic]

That sounds like he's implying that the riots are justified or at least that they're no big deal. I can't condone that, whatever complaints, legitimate or otherwise, people may have against the US government. What's the point of having a democracy and courts if we can't solve our disputes without fire and blood in the streets?

[Thanas]

What's the point of having courts if police can kill at will and get away with it?

[The Romulan Republic]

Their are certainly aspects of American policing that badly need reform. But excuse me if I don't think rioting is the best way to address that. If anything, its going to cost the peaceful protesters support and give the police an excuse for more violence.

[Thanas]

No, I agree with that. But at some point, people feel there is no way of fixing the system, so the system needs to be abolished. And so far nothing has been done that fixes police brutality. I don't blame the people for saying "fuck this" after Zimmerman, Ferguson, Eric Garner (anybody sentenced or even indicted for that murder yet?) and many others.


In other news, Ray Lewis has chimed in.

[Thanas]

Ghetto edit:

This case is sounding fucking fishy.

Black man (Freddie Gray) is arrested by the police and taken to the police station. In the 30 minutes it takes for them to reach the police station, Gray somehow has 3 of his vertebrae fractured and his voice box crushed, ultimately dying from those injuries a week later.

It's also important to note that the route the cops supposedly took to the station from where Gray was arrested normally takes around 10 minutes to drive.

They also stopped twice along the way, but nobody (besides the cops involved) knows what happened during that time

Add to that that many people claim BPD has a tradition of giving minorities rough rides (cuff subject so he cannot protect himself. Toss subject into trunk/back of police cruiser. Make sharp turns and quick maneuvers so that subject hits the car with head and body parts.) and this reads like an excerpt out of a third world country.

[KroLazuxy_87]

Honestly? The rioters and the looters can get straight to hell. There is no excuse that justify burning down your own neighborhood or smashing and robbing local stores.

I agree; there is no excuse. However, there is an explanation.

That sounds like he's implying that the riots are justified or at least that they're no big deal. I can't condone that, whatever complaints, legitimate or otherwise, people may have against the US government. What's the point of having a democracy and courts if we can't solve our disputes without fire and blood in the streets?

Justification has an implied element of reason and rarely do people consider violence reasonable. The exceptions being cases of defense of self, others, property, rights, or beliefs. Perhaps the term 'explanation' is more palatable?

As Thanas pointed out, the system of courts and law enforcement is not evenly applied to everyone in America.

Also, I'm surprised you haven't heard: America isn't a democracy.

Their are certainly aspects of American policing that badly need reform. But excuse me if I don't think rioting is the best way to address that. If anything, its going to cost the peaceful protesters support and give the police an excuse for more violence.

I couldn't agree more.

No, I agree with that. But at some point, people feel there is no way of fixing the system, so the system needs to be abolished. And so far nothing has been done that fixes police brutality. I don't blame the people for saying "fuck this" after Zimmerman, Ferguson, Eric Garner (anybody sentenced or even indicted for that murder yet?) and many others.

Again, I couldn't agree more.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first step towards solving a problem is to identify and understand the problem. Let's start with some quotable links for context!

Sampling of a reddit commenter's opinion:

It's so easy to harken back to the days of MLK and say "oh MLK will be rolling in his grave" because you see uneducated blacks rioting stupidly. But what you fail to consider is that in MLK's time, the proof of racism was encoded into law so MLK could point and say "see, these laws are here to hold us down" and shit like that. He had a reciept to fall back on and point at as vindication. Now we are in a world of dog whistles. Where the police won't come out right and say they are hunitng black men but would say they are hunting "thugs" or "drug dealers' or "urban youths'.
[sic]
What is going on in Baltimore is reflective of Ferguson. You're talking about a group of people that have been hammered to the point of frustration by both the law and those who claim to work for it.

Pulled from a Psychology Today article:

"If there's one underlying condition that these movements share, it has to do with unemployment and bitter poverty among people who desire to be part of the middle class, and who are keenly aware of the sharp inequality between themselves and their country's wealthy elite."

This is from this Fortune.com article:

The late historian Tony Judt addressed these effects in Ill Fares the Land, a book on the consequences of the financial crisis, writing: "There has been a collapse in intergenerational mobility: in contrast to their parents and grandparents, children today in the UK as in the US have very little expectation of improving upon the condition into which they were born. The poor stay poor. Economic disadvantage for the overwhelming majority translates into ill health, missed educational opportunity, and—increasingly—the familiar symptoms of depression: alcoholism, obesity, gambling, and minor criminality."

A quote (and a graph, yay!) from the Pew Reseach Center:

Our analysis of Federal Reserve data does reveal a stark divide in the experiences of white, black and Hispanic households during the economic recovery. From 2010 to 2013, the median wealth of non-Hispanic white households increased from $138,600 to $141,900, or by 2.4%.
Meanwhile, the median wealth of non-Hispanic black households fell 33.7%, from $16,600 in 2010 to $11,000 in 2013. Among Hispanics, median wealth decreased by 14.3%, from $16,000 to $13,700. For all families — white, black and Hispanic — median wealth is still less than its pre-recession level.

A number of factors seem responsible for the widening of the wealth gaps during the economic recovery. As the Federal Reserve notes, the median income of minority households (blacks, Hispanics and other non-whites combined) fell 9% from its 2010 to 2013 surveys, compared with a decrease of 1% for non-Hispanic white households. Thus, minority households may not have replenished their savings as much as white households or they may have had to draw down their savings even more during the recovery.
Also, financial assets, such as stocks, have recovered in value more quickly than housing since the recession ended. White households are much more likely than minority households to own stocks directly or indirectly through retirement accounts. Thus, they were in better position to benefit from the recovery in financial markets.

Whoa lot's of reading! (If you followed the links through)

This topic is entwined with societal values, economic principles, religious beliefs, and racial stereotypes. Getting to truths and facts through the quagmire of issues created by confirmation bias, the misunderstanding of correlation vs. causation, and exposure bias created by unequal media coverage is near to impossible. However, difficulty is no indication of worthiness.

Is my opinion right? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not sure if my opinion is valid, accurate, or relevant because those labels cannot be placed on my opinion by myself but rather by others. I can only hope to sway others' decision of my opinion by providing supporting evidence and using logic to the best of my ability.

In my opinion, the violence and rioting should stop while the protesting should continue. If I was a poor African American (or if the roles were reversed and Whites were the ones getting the short end of the racial inequality stick[sorry, no picture]) I can't say for certain that I wouldn't be one of the rioters. I'm certain I'd be a protester, but after days of seeing no attention paid my way it begins looking like a good idea to smash a window or two when I know that'll get every major news organization down there in a hurry. Sadly, in a news culture with the ethos of "It bleeds; it leads" drastic measures are the only ones that seem to count anymore. I'm not advocating violence - plenty of real, meaningful change has come about without violence, rioting, or drastic measures. Unfortunately, more and more people are losing faith in the system that is supposed to give them a voice and the ability to enact change. When a person feels they are out of options, they do desperate things. I'm simply saying that when you back an animal into a corner, it'll bite. We humans have done a lot to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom, but the rules of the wild are rarely obsolete.

[Joun_Lord]

* apparently for eyeballing a police officer and then running away, cause if he's running away he must be guilty of something right?

But he was guilty of something. Carrying a concealed switchblade carries a three year sentence in Maryland.

Yeah that's a crime, but owning a home arsenal isn't.

It is in Maryland, they passed an extended assault clip and deadly black police child seeking evil assault weapon ban that possess two or more special kid killing features including folding stocks, grenade/flare launchers, and flash suppressors. Plus, atleast according to wiki, to buy a handgun you have to jump through a ton of hoops like a good little doggy and have to do the buy in the State Police barracks.

There is a reason so many gun manufacturers threw a bitch fit recently.

[UnderAGreySky]

The ever-brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

The citizens who live in West Baltimore, where the rioting began, intuitively understand this. I grew up across the street from Mondawmin Mall, where today's riots began. My mother was raised in the same housing project, Gilmor Homes, where Freddie Gray was killed. Everyone I knew who lived in that world regarded the police not with admiration and respect but with fear and caution. People write these feelings off as wholly irrational at their own peril, or their own leisure. The case against the Baltimore police, and the society that superintends them, is easily made:

Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson ....

And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims—if charges were filed at all. In an incident that drew headlines recently, charges against a South Baltimore man were dropped after a video showed an officer repeatedly punching him—a beating that led the police commissioner to say he was “shocked.”Source

The money paid out by the city to cover for the brutal acts of its police department would be enough to build "a state-of-the-art rec center or renovations at more than 30 playgrounds." Instead, the money was used to cover for the brutal acts of the city's police department and ensure they remained well beyond any semblance of justice.

The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray's death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray's death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.")

More at the link, with citations.

[The Romulan Republic]

You know what? I don't appreciate implications that those who support non-violence are all hypocrites with no solution (with the accompanying implication that they are in the wrong and that violence is in fact the answer).

[Thanas]

Re-read the article, because it makes no such claim.

[The Romulan Republic]

I suppose its possible that I misunderstood it. I get edgy about this sort of thing. Far too many people seem to have turned their backs on peace, justice, and the law. I can't tell you how many people I've seen in recent years, on both the Left and the Right, leaning towards political violence. It disturbs and frightens me and perhaps I overreact sometimes as a result.

Edit: Still, that bottom excerpt seemed like a pretty unambiguous indictment of those who are calling for peace.

[KroLazuxy_87]

I'd wager that comment wasn't meant to imply what you're inferring. (only the author truly knows what they meant to imply) What I infer from it is that while the author is outraged over the death of this man at the hands of the police and wants justice, he is seeing an overwhelming amount of reporting that is serving only to marginalize the rioters and to a lesser extent, the protestors. I think the author is aggitated by the implications that those in the streets are simply "going about this the wrong way" when experience has shown them that trusting in the peaceful system of law and justice hasn't gotten any results.

[The Romulan Republic]

But it seems to me that that is basically saying that violence is an acceptable response because the law doesn't work.

[Grumman]

I think the author is aggitated by the implications that those in the streets are simply "going about this the wrong way" when experience has shown them that trusting in the peaceful system of law and justice hasn't gotten any results.

There are worse things than doing nothing. At least trusting in the peaceful system of law does not actively destroy their livelihoods and their ability to buy food, fuck over innocent people and just generally make their neighbourhood a shittier place to live in.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Many people, when they feel their voice is not being heard and they fear for their lives, turn to violence as a way to try and address a situation. You cannot deny that there is a great deal of friction between minorities and police in this nation, if you have even a trace of integrity. Minorities see a disproportionate amount of attention from the police, being suspected of criminal acts regardless of if the minority in question is doing anything that would be suspicious in a white person. White kid wearing a hoodie, oh he must be cold. Black kid wearing a hoodie? Maybe he's got a gun or a knife! He might be a drug dealer, better go search him to be sure! Pay attention to statistics coming out of New York, for example. Blacks are subject to stop and frisk, rarely turning up anything when they are.

Now, when a group is subject to substantially more suspicion from the police and you've got police forces packing military grade hardware? When police are so paranoid as to think that everyone on the street is about to shoot them, especially the "suspicious" looking people? You've got a recipe for disaster. Almost nobody on this board denies there's a big issue with the "blue wall" in this country, where you see police going uncharged when they commit acts that are blatantly criminal. Or getting a lighter sentence than anybody else would for beating someone to death for no damned reason. You see police denying diabetics they've arrested access to insulin. Each of those words? Different links, different instances of diabetics being denied their insulin.

I don't think I need to linkspam to show all the instances of people being beaten bloody while unarmed, even handcuffed. It's already very well documented in the Police Abuse Thread. People are falsely convicted because evidence was withheld, or fabricated entirely.

The US justice system, from the police all the way up to the court system, is afflicted with a cancer. Not everyone in it is corrupt. Not everyone in it is damaging to the criminal justice system. There are lots of good people who feel utterly powerless in the face of all the bad shit that happens. Eventually, if you can't fight the cancer by targeting the cancer alone, you cut off the part that has cancer itself. Some have come to view the cancer afflicting the "justice" system to be so severe that simply trying to cut out instances of cancer isn't working. They've become convinced that, as an analogy, a leg has become so cancerous and the doctor won't even do anything about it, that it's time to just cut off the damn leg themselves. Is it really that bad at this point? I don't know.

I do know that people have been demanding change, demanding transparency, demanding that police actually face penalties for misdeeds that ruin or even end lives. And I also know that progress has been slow as hell at absolute best. The blue wall has not vanished. New cases continue to crop up of forced confessions, manufactured evidence, evidence being suppressed... People are still being targeted by police for looking "suspicious." People that are dressed like everyone around them. People are arrested for having a belt that looks "too expensive" for them to have bought. People are pulled over for driving a car that looks too expensive for them to own. And all too often, the reason for it "looking too expensive" is the color of the person's skin.


Maybe, just maybe, some people have concluded that peaceful protests have failed. Yeah, there are shitstains that are more interested in breaking and stealing things than they are in actually having the system change for the better. But look at goddamn sporting events, where drunken morons start fires and smash windows. Is the response to these fuckheads the same as people rioting over systemic police abuse? Is a state of emergency declared?


There are a lot of desperate people out there that feel their voices are not being valued. People that feel their livelihood is under threat of being destroyed, that their very lives are at risk because of how the system currently is. Typically, that's when violence starts to become more widespread. I don't know if it's that bad, I don't live under the circumstances many minorities do. Violence against people that aren't involved in injustice isn't a good response, it isn't a response that's desirable. But the people that are responsible have lots of guns and body armor. They have access to armored vehicles. So there will be those that target "safer" groups to show hostility to.


Grumman: The "peaceful system of law" is anything but. They've been giving it a chance to work things out, and the people who are using violence to try and affect change have concluded that peaceful protests will not change things. I'm not taking a stance if they're correct or mistaken, I'm just looking at things from their perspective.

[CaptHawkeye]

No, I agree with that. But at some point, people feel there is no way of fixing the system, so the system needs to be abolished. And so far nothing has been done that fixes police brutality. I don't blame the people for saying "fuck this" after Zimmerman, Ferguson, Eric Garner (anybody sentenced or even indicted for that murder yet?) and many others.


In other news, Ray Lewis has chimed in.

I remember when I was as out of touch as some people in this country. Course I was also a kid then. It's really interesting to me to see grown adults in this country, people who lived through the Rodney King days too, acting like these outbreaks of violence were totally unexpected. At this point you have be willfully misinforming yourself in order to seriously be blindsided by modern race riots.

[Haminal10]

You see police denying diabetics they've arrested access to insulin. Each of those words? Different links, different instances of diabetics being denied their insulin.

You want to know another way to deny diabetics access to their insulin? Break into the local pharmacy, loot everything of value, and then set the fucking building on fire.

That CVS pharmacy just opened recently, and was the culmination of many peoples' efforts to bring new businesses and services into an impoverished area. And then in a few hours of insanity and utter stupidity, people burned it to the ground.

Does anyone honestly think that that store is going to re-open? Or that any new grocery stores or business would move into the area? Why would any company invest money in a place where business get torched and looted?

There are a lot of desperate people out there that feel their voices are not being valued. People that feel their livelihood is under threat of being destroyed, that their very lives are at risk because of how the system currently is.

You want to know another way to threaten and destroy peoples' livelihoods? How about breaking into a looting a liquor store? Maybe more than one! Or maybe break into a local mall, drive cars up to the entrance, and grab anything you can.

These are local business, owned by locals, that likely employ people from the neighborhood. Way to stick it to the man!

Again, there is no excuse for the behavior of these people. Listing "explanations" for their actions or statements about how the rioting is "understandable" while buildings are still smoldering and National Guardsmen are patrolling the streets of my city is probably the most counter-productive thing to do. It plays right into the hands of people who oppose serious police reform or efforts to stop police brutality (Seriously, pick any conservative website you want. I can guess what they are all reporting on without even checking.)

[Gandalf]

But it seems to me that that is basically saying that violence is an acceptable response because the law doesn't work.

Isn't that one of the pillars of American culture?

"Law inadequate, heroic American must take control of situation!"

[The Romulan Republic]

Its a common attitude, but I think its one of the greatest flaws in American culture. I mean, their are possible situations where the law is so unjust or ineffective that such an approach is justified, but their is an element of American culture that is entirely too eager to jump to that course of action.

I mean, it makes for great superhero movies, but that's where it should stay: in fiction.

[Flagg]

Honestly, any white American speaking ill of the protesters (and yes, protesters can be violent and participate in rioting) should be criticizing the fact that they are destroying their own neighborhoods, and not the nicer ones the cops live in. Any other criticism can be directed here:

Unless you've lived in constant legitimate fear of the people hired, given a gun, a badge, and lawful authority over you. They know (and you know) they can ruin your life by filling out a form. The situation is so bad now that they know they can murder you (because maybe they just felt like it), and odds are the worst that'll happen is a few days or weeks of paid vacation, maybe a few months riding a desk and a couple of "therapy sessions".

Unless it's on video. Then you may have to go through a grand jury to not be indicted, a complicated legal procedure before a Judge to not get indicted, or god forbid, get indicted on involuntary manslaughter (even if the victim has holes punched only in the back or is shot execution style in the back of the head) only to go through a 1-2 week trial to finally be acquitted and put back on the job.

And of course they know damned well that you know it too.

So unless you've lived that, anything you have to say against the protestors better be geographic, or you can eat my ass.

[Gandalf]

Honestly, any white American speaking ill of the protesters (and yes, protesters can be violent and participate in rioting) should be criticizing the fact that they are destroying their own neighborhoods, and not the nicer ones the cops live in. Any other criticism can be directed here:

Something tells me that if they got anywhere near those neighbourhoods, they'd be met with a lot more than riot cops.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, any white American speaking ill of the protesters (and yes, protesters can be violent and participate in rioting) should be criticizing the fact that they are destroying their own neighborhoods, and not the nicer ones the cops live in. Any other criticism can be directed here:

Yeah yeah, white people are all collectively guilty and thus have a responsibility to accept violence against the cops/rich people.

Shove it up your ass. I try to base my sense of morality on a respect for the lives and rights of other people, regardless of their profession, amount of wealth, or race. And I try to be fucking consistent about it, which requires me to condemn the rioters as strenuously as I condemn police brutality (and I do condemn it).

Unless you've lived in constant legitimate fear of the people hired, given a gun, a badge, and lawful authority over you. They know (and you know) they can ruin your life by filling out a form. The situation is so bad now that they know they can murder you (because maybe they just felt like it), and odds are the worst that'll happen is a few days or weeks of paid vacation, maybe a few months riding a desk and a couple of "therapy sessions".

I'm scared of the police at times, even though I'm a white man. And I think I have reason to be. I have multiple white family members who have sued the police (I'm not going to go into details here because that's personal). Though this is in Canada, not the US. No, I'm not saying the treatment of white people by cops is equivalent. But everyone has something to fear from abusive cops. However, that doesn't mean we should be rioting and giving innocent people something else to fear.

Unless it's on video. Then you may have to go through a grand jury to not be indicted, a complicated legal procedure before a Judge to not get indicted, or god forbid, get indicted on involuntary manslaughter (even if the victim has holes punched only in the back or is shot execution style in the back of the head) only to go through a 1-2 week trial to finally be acquitted and put back on the job.

And of course they know damned well that you know it too.

So unless you've lived that, anything you have to say against the protestors better be geographic, or you can eat my ass.

See above.

[Simon_Jester]

Only white people are allowed to revolt in this country it seems.

Can't take my guns away oh no. I need my M4 for home defense just trust me. Tired of being suppressed by years of institutional racism well too bad that sucks. Don't make me live in fear for a week with your violence! I don't care that minorities live every day of their entire lives in fear of racist police, or becoming gang fodder after being trapped in the ghettos. But that Obama man i'm just saying we may have to do something if he dares to make me sign a form indicating I have no history of crime or mental illness before I purchase my Barrett.

Is the person you're aiming all this at on this forum? If so, who are they? If not, take your rambling blob of sarcasm somewhere it isn't a strawman.

More generally, this wasn't a revolt.

This was an act of gross evildoing by local police, resulting in a massive and thoroughly justified protest, which was then used as justification for acts of random and destructive crime by the local criminal element.

These are entirely separate things. The protestors are not the same group as the idiots thinking "let's get mad and throw rocks and hope the police don't shoot at us like we'd shoot at people throwing rocks at us if we had the guns!"

Nor are they the same group as the people thinking "let's go burn down the only source of decent groceries and medicine in an entire neighborhood, the one that our community leaders worked long and hard to bring to this community in an attempt to provide some good jobs and improve things, only now nobody but the liquor stores is going to do business here anymore!"

Nor are the protestors the same as the ones thinking, and I have encountered this one personally today, "Freddie Gray, therefore we get to break laws!" Not even "attack the oppressive system" lawbreaking, but lawbreaking against random stuff that has nothing to do with the actual system oppressing them.

None of those latter three groups are a 'revolt.' They are random ignorant bozos. A handful of them may think they're rebels, but they're not; they are far less of a threat to the system than a real revolt would ever be.

Example: The Ferguson incidents after Michael Brown's death were mostly protests, with a side of occasional looting.

Baltimore, unfortunately, is looking like mostly rioting and looting with minimal protesting from what I'm hearing, although it's quite possible the news media are mostly covering the former with little regard for the latter.

10,000 Strong Peacefully Protest In Downtown Baltimore, Media Only Reports The Violence & Arrest of Dozens

This is an unfortunate side effect of a riot. It always draws attention because it has a lot of attention-grabbing power.

The African-American community of Baltimore is very much within their rights to want to individually grab each of these rioters (mostly teenagers or 'adults' still in mental adolescence), shake them, and yell "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!" in their faces.

What's the point of having courts if police can kill at will and get away with it?

The rioters are actively helping the police get away with it, because they're causing the basically law-abiding sector of the population to fear rioters and anarchy more than they fear the police. The whole point is that the police have become a force of violence... but by waving themselves around as a scary criminal boogeyman, the rioters divert attention from this and reduce the odds that anything will actually get fixed.

Honestly, any white American speaking ill of the protesters (and yes, protesters can be violent and participate in rioting) should be criticizing the fact that they are destroying their own neighborhoods, and not the nicer ones the cops live in.

If they were attacking the police specifically that would at least make sense even if I would think it stupid for tactical reasons.

Thing is, the protestors are not the looters and rioters. They really aren't. There's some overlap, but they are not the same group even if they're from the same neighborhoods.

Unless you've lived in constant legitimate fear of the people hired, given a gun, a badge, and lawful authority over you. They know (and you know) they can ruin your life by filling out a form. The situation is so bad now that they know they can murder you (because maybe they just felt like it), and odds are the worst that'll happen is a few days or weeks of paid vacation, maybe a few months riding a desk and a couple of "therapy sessions".

Unless it's on video. Then you may have to go through a grand jury to not be indicted, a complicated legal procedure before a Judge to not get indicted, or god forbid, get indicted on involuntary manslaughter (even if the victim has holes punched only in the back or is shot execution style in the back of the head) only to go through a 1-2 week trial to finally be acquitted and put back on the job.

And of course they know damned well that you know it too.

So unless you've lived that, anything you have to say against the protestors better be geographic, or you can eat my ass.

If a faction of the protestors organized a serious, committed guerilla underground devoted to waging urban warfare against a police force they see as an occupying army, and refrained from committing crimes against the populace, I would have very little to say against them except "In the long run I don't think this will work out for those guys." And I would certainly understand.

That is so amazingly, horribly far from what is actually happening here.

[Haminal10]

The protesters have my support. The rioters and looters can go fuck themselves.

[Broomstick]

Seeking the causes of a bad situation is not the same as condoning the situation. Seeking out reasons and risk factors for people turning to crime is not the same thing as excusing criminal acts.

If you don't try to find out the factors leading to crime then you will never solve crime and may inadvertently take actions that lead to a greater level of crime.