For what it's worth, the threat of jail / imprisonment has no effect on determined murders whatsoever. In fact it has no effect violent crimes in general. Fro

For what it's worth, the threat of jail / imprisonment has no effect on determined murders whatsoever. In fact it has no effect violent crimes in general. From https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/for-the-record-prison-paradox_02.pdf https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/for-the-record-p... : > The weak association between higher incarceration rates and lower crime rates applies almost entirely to property crime.16 Research consistently shows that higher incarceration rates are not associated with lower violent crime rates. It does make sense. If a person is committing a crime in the hopes of material gain, reducing that material gain by imposing a negative gain if they get caught should deter them. It doesn't seem like a person committing a crime of passion would be using that sort calculus. And it turns out in this case intuition is right: the figures say they don't. Ergo the threat of jail has no effect on the number of murders committed.