Murder’s social costs reach far beyond the immediate victim

Evidence

Homicidal behavior has such dire social consequences that all societies make efforts to curb it. Not only do murderous offenders inflict personal suffering on their victims and their victims’ loved ones, but on a broader scale they also threaten public safety and the social order. Through the fears they arouse, they change the quality of life in society and impose costly protective measures on society at large that involve law enforcement and judicial and prison systems. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1831