> We increasingly put people in bad situations and then blame them when they lash out.
They are not _justifying_ it, they are calling out a cause/effect relationship. When people are desperate, they do destructive things. And our society is doing things that increase the number of desperate people.
A lot of crime gets blamed on all kinds of causes, but with a cause so vague all kinds of counterfactuals can be listed out: poverty doesn't explain why countries with more surveillance and more poverty have less crime like home invasions (CCCP).
I am eager to learn more if you have some data/links on this
WRT home invasions, I'm sure the ubiquity of guns in the US is another relevant dimension.