How to commit a perfect murder

The perfect murder is a recurring theme in many works of art, high and popular. Scientific inquiry has generally overlooked the issue, though a considerable body of cross-disciplinary evidence documents wide variation in the handling of homicide in human societies. At one extreme lie those intentional homicides that result in no legal sanctions and popular praise for the killer, homicides that may be fairly termed perfect murders. But when will killers get away with murder? The present paper draws upon pure sociology to specify the conditions under which the combination of maximal legal and popular leniency for homicide occurs. Data on the killing of civilians by police in the United States and Brazil illustrates the continuum of murder perfection, with those in Brazil providing an especially close fit with the theoretical model.