The safest assumption of all is that people who hurt others (or themselves) are themselves hurting human beings--not withstanding any displays of bravado. Be it the mentally troubled soul who burns themselves with a cigarette or the thief who steals from others, underneath it all you can be certain lies a hurting human psyche.
Such people need correction, but more fundamentally they need a receptive listener who doesn't judge but listens (and not judgmentally) and therefore with a tangible form of love. The ultimate source of all evil is pain--the devil being a cohort of pain's psychosis. In a real sense we can say those hurting others or themselves are sick. Therefore it can be seen when effectiveness is the end in view, we often err on the side of impatience and retribution and shortchange compassion-based interventions of healing. Visualize with me Departments of Healing where now dominate Departments of Correction--themselves a product of pain. Let us turn Departments of Judgment into capable Departments of Justice.
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