In my opinion, this is just statistics worship, and is not unlike a form of utilitarianism. Murder rates are low, but we spend an incredible amount of resources preventing, investigating, prosecuting, imprisoning and executing murderers, even those who have murdered just one person.

While I have significant grievances with the US justice and prison system, I'm okay with expending disproportionate resources to ensure that people don't take others' lives just because they want to or feel entitled to.