I have a strong feeling that you can mostly tell from the details of the crime itself, whether a given murderer would go on to be a serial killer, or whether this was just "a one-time thing."
It makes sense to me that people are desperate to put away serial killers (because the alternative is more deaths), insisting that the case must be pursued until someone is put away for the crime.
But it doesn't make sense to me that people would rather an innocent person rot in prison with nonzero probability, than a killer who will likely never kill again go free. I feel there should be a very high standard of evidence to convict in cases where there's no likelihood of continued societal harm coming from the guilty party, whoever they are.
(Yes, from an anthropological viewpoint, prison exists not just for rehabilitation, but also partially because people just want revenge... but the whole point of centralizing and structuring this mechanism for societal vengeance, is to prevent that vengeance from being applied to the wrong person!)
It makes sense to me that people are desperate to put away serial killers (because the alternative is more deaths), insisting that the case must be pursued until someone is put away for the crime.
But it doesn't make sense to me that people would rather an innocent person rot in prison with nonzero probability, than a killer who will likely never kill again go free. I feel there should be a very high standard of evidence to convict in cases where there's no likelihood of continued societal harm coming from the guilty party, whoever they are.
(Yes, from an anthropological viewpoint, prison exists not just for rehabilitation, but also partially because people just want revenge... but the whole point of centralizing and structuring this mechanism for societal vengeance, is to prevent that vengeance from being applied to the wrong person!)