Re: my previous note. A lot of street crime is moderately rational, given bad choices facing many folks, or induced by pretty obvious causes - drug addiction, need for protection in gangs, etc. And the prosecution of such crimes is riveted with racism and economic oppression.
But just because a lot of crime has root causes doesn't mean that there aren't some areas of violence and criminality- the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world as an example - that escape almost any useful causal barometer.
Extrapolation is a dangerous thing-- because we can argue that x is rational, then 3x or 100x must merely be a quantitative extension of x. I used the word "proportionality" early on and people had similar problems with my comments, but the line between rational causal conflict and irrational evil is precisely the proportionality of the acts.
When that proportionality is lost, it becomes quite reasonable to abandon causal explanations, try psychological if you want, but ultimately you often are in the realm of the purely irrational- where John Hinkley, Son of Sam, Hitler, Bin Laden and the statistical freaks of hate and violence dwell.
-- Nathan Newman