It's not an excuse as in we're letting them off the hook, its an explanation. They will need severe reworking, they're not excused of shit. Many of them can never be fixed and the only option is the pit. But we should be grieving that things ever got to this point and recognizing that they, despite needing the pit, were born loving and caring human beings just as we were, and that the evil forces that didn't quite catch us got to them and did too much damage to ever undo.