Compassion should explain behavior without automatically excusing it.

Explanation and permission are different things. Understanding why someone acted as they did, the pressure, the history, the fear, makes them intelligible without making the harm acceptable or the consequence unnecessary. Collapsing the two leaves you with only two poor options, condemning without understanding or excusing without accountability.

Try holding both in one sentence about someone who has hurt you or someone else. Say why it makes sense that they did it and say that it was still wrong. Both halves can be true and usually are.