perpetrator families: opinions?

[Donovan]

i remember once when i was growing up, there was a newspaper article about some kid in our town who was murdered. my mother said under her breath that if she had to choose, she would rather be the mother of the victim than of the perpetrator ...

That goes to the heart of the premise of this thread. I agree with your mother.

Yes, in a lot of ways this is exactly what I'm getting at. In the cases I'm currently observing, there is a much greater level of support for victims' families than for those of the perpetrators of crimes, and YET...

there are a great many parallels between the reactions. For example, this thread is almost a microcosm of what happens on both sides when a horrible crime occurs.

There are idiots like Sterling, whose ill-thought-out moral values and half-remembered parables lead to an incoherent and ranting sense of justice that often has little to do with justice or reality and more to do with entirely unrelated anger and bitterness at their own perceived raw deal from life. People like Sterling want the world to pay, and it doesn't really matter for what reason.

Then there are reactions like Teacher, who seem to imply all problems can be solved by pouring more "god" on them. Unfortunately this is as much a condemnation and vilification as the vitriol spewed by Sterling, because the unspoken accusation is that if your family member kills or is killed, they simply weren't godly enough. And whose fault is that? The only difference is that these condemners hide their slings and arrows behind smiles and seeming well-wishes. My thought is this: if everything is God's plan and He is infinite in His wisdom, does that not absolve the murderer because he is simply acting as God's instrument?

Then there are reactions like Cracker, whose opinions are so blatant and superficial they can be quickly ridiculed, but sadly occur in a majority of average onlookers. People like Cracker deal in absolutes. "All" this do that, and "all" that act this way. It would be easy to dismiss people like Cracker, but such stupidity is dangerous in large numbers, and there are a lot of Crackers out there.

The point I'm trying to make I guess is that most people spend a great deal of time trying to assign blame on anything but the perpetrator of the crime, and victimhood on anyone other than the victim. We get hung up looking for reasons why someone could do something so outside the lines, maybe because we know we're all only a couple really bad days from becoming one or the other.