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I guess my problem with 'root causes' strategies is that the root cause of most crime is 'he's just like that'. Most 'root causes' that get highlighted by activists are just correlates of criminality (e.g. poverty) not causes. If poverty caused crime then our grandparents' generation (in every developed country) would have been extremely criminal during their youth, and they weren't.
You'll see someone raise a point that's evidence for "just like that" position and draw completely different conclusions. The funny one usually goes something like "Jamie spent 30 years in and out of juvie and prison for various violent offenses. His dad also went to jail for murder and he was raised by his single mother. Just another example of how interactions with the justice system create an intergenerational spiral".
It never seems to occur to the people most likely to use this stuff.
My girlfriend likes true crime — and it comes up even with the most vile, wicked people you can imagine. Lots of gesturing about how serial killers who raped women and or men and then tortured and killed them were that way because dad was an abusive drunk.
The idea that the abusive father and the killer son could have been that way because of their shared genetics and personality characteristics never seems to occur to anyone.
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