I think in terms of preventing future violence, examining
the causes is of utmost importance. For a year I worked at a therapueudic wilderness
camp for "at-risk" youth. Many of these teens were sent to our camp as an alternative
to jail while countless others were there because they had serious anger management
issues and were making the wrong choices in dealing with this at school and home. After
12 or 14 months of living in this environment (which for many felt more like punishment)
this program graduated kids who were ready to re-enter society and function at school,
with their families, and in normal lives without further
incident.
This program mainly practiced "Reality Therapy."
In this (the term was coined by Glasser) the reason for the violence or wrong behavior
is not actually part of changing the behavior. Reality therapy looks at a goal - and
what is the best way of achieving the goal. But I will say from experience with those
kids, that it wasn't until they could talk through the reasons why they acted the way
they did that they could begin to see their patterns and recognize when/how to make
changes. The root causes (family issues, violent parents, drugs, negative peers in
their real lives and rough lifestyles) were also eventually talked through. Again, the
causes were never looked at as justification for the behaviors, but giving the behaviors
a starting place was one of the biggest steps to recovery for these
kids.
I think the same is true for most violent criminals.
Like the first post says, outisde of self-defense (and this only to a degree) I don't
think the reason behind the violence is ever justification for it - nor do I think it
gives violence pardon. But in order to heal violent tendencies, I think it must be
examined.
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