Some people are depraved and simply lack a moral compass. What's scary to think is these are, statistically, people you pass on your way to work. They exist in poor and rich countries, among the pious and among the irreverent and in between.

It's the same kind of people who adopt[1] in order to get government subsidies but treat their charges worse than cattle --at least cattle get to graze nd do cattle things.

[1] I hope it's not necessary to state that this is a small minority of adoptive/foster parents, but they exist, unfortunately.