Not if you believe in evil...

Immediately following WWII, there was a seperate push to deprive infants of human contact - the "modern," "sterile" approach to child-rearing, heavily promoted both in the US and Russia.

Its fruits, especially in russian state orphanages, are sort of infamous to the point of urban legend. It is worth noting that Harlow's results involve phrases like "severely and permanently damaged."

How much easier is it to get a severely damaged person to accept violence against innocents? How much easier is it to get someone who has never had any attachments to commit violence against the innocent? How much easier is it to get the permanently damaged to accept inferior, compensatory substitutes for basic human needs - like scapegoating or extremes of the useless end of materialism?

If you view the actual outcome as both deliberate, and the goal, it becomes a little more explainable... and police still forcibly return runaways, even as "severe and permanent damage" to children is encouraged under threat.

That's what's going on here.