Victim vs criminal

Man stabs woman 13 times. These represent the bare facts in the case but in time the situation will unnecessarily become more complicate. The man is Black and has a long rap sheet of various crimes of violence. He comes from a broken home and was raised mostly by street gangs. He dropped out of school at 16 and started dealing and subsequently using drugs. He was never given a fair shake in school because he lacked self discipline and had never learned respect for authority. His grand father grew up in the south in the days of Jim Crow and told him he would always be treated as a second class citizen because he was Black. His father died young from a drug overdose and his younger brother was killed in a drive by. Notice how the feeling suggested by the opening facts seem to drift into morass of societal guilt that somehow he was not really responsible for his actions. After all when you look at this countries history of slavery how could he be fully responsible. This kind of thought process started the push for criminal reforms and some feel the push has been too far that concern for the criminal is now more important than concern for the victim.