I have watched more broadcasts on the aftermath of the Casey Anthony trial than I can tally. Watched her face, watched her eyes, watched her mouth, watched her hairdos, watched clips of her mother, her father, her brother, the former fiancé, the former fiance’s father, the woman who stayed with her while the search teams went looking for this young mother’s missing child. Did this young woman intentionally kill her child? I'm not sure. If I had sat in the courtroom could I arrive at a definitive answer? I don’t know. I’ve sat on juries before and the impression I am usually left with afterwards when the case is over and I find out more is what astoundingly critical information was not admissible as evidence. Casey Anthony was guilty of something very off in terms of mothering her daughter. I think we can assume the jury thought so, too, but we can also assume that this Casey Anthony jury ran up against this same facet of our legal system, not receiving evidence that would have helped their deliberations.

But what keeps me attending to these shows on HLN is not rage at a miscarriage of justice, which seems to be the predominant emotion that we are hearing about. What keeps me watching is wondering how did Casey Anthony get here...to this place where she behaved woefully inappropriately every step of the way, with whatever happened with her daughter, with her complete disregard of her daughter's missing status afterward, with all her lies to law enforcement professionals and search team volunteers? Are people born with a criminal make up? Or does their environment—their family, community and extended society, make them so?

I overheard a conversation in the parking lot yesterday outside a children’s center where recreational activities are offered for low-income and homeless families from the surrounding areas. A woman with a tough look about her, hard features, hair-pulled back into a nondescript ponytail, yet with an energetic-enough air about her, was getting into an older model station wagon next to me with two children in tow, maybe nine-year-olds, who were climbing into the back seat. "Uncle Richard’s out!" she announced, a celebratory tone to her words.

Is it because I’ve heard dozens of times that Casey Anthony is "out" this Sunday that I immediately thought out of prison? I focused hard for what other "out" she could be referring to, but came up with nothing.

Through the open car windows, I heard one of the kids answer from the back seat. "That’s good he didn’t do something really bad like kill somebody."

Wow. Okay, so we are talking about prison here. And the child at least knows that killing someone would be "really bad." But I still had to sit in my car for a moment, stunned. What kind of life is this that Uncle Richard getting out of prison is a passing conversation with the kids as we ride home from our play at the rec center ? A life where people going in and out of prison is normal. That does not present as a good basis to start from...

Casey Anthony’s almost father-in-law, a minister, described Casey’s situation in the simplest terms. When asked if he thought Casey had been sexually abused by her father or brother, he said, "something happened." Someone did something to her at some point. More than one person has described Casey Anthony as "broken."

I know the answer to my question, the answer I try to ward off by watching more and more HLN shows, attempting to gain an alternate insight into the Casey Anthonys of the world…but I never succeed. Are criminals born? No. We the people—families, friends, communities, the news and entertainment media—we create criminals. And that is the most horrifying at all.