Kidnappers, escaped murderers, hostage takers, and others, sometimes find themselves in a situation where there is no difference in punishment whether or not they kill someone. That clearly should not be. Thus, the law should offer some non-trivial incentive for not killing as distasteful as that policy might be.
No further explanation needed. All comments welcome.
This is a tough one. If the incentive is financial, then does that incentivize desperate people to kidnap or take more people as hostages?
If the incentive is based on lesser punishment – let’s say that he/she/they has already killed 2 people, but has more people as hostages, and say that they will also kill them unless some number of prisoners are freed, then that could potentially incentivize that kind of behavior. Israel handles these situations by making the wrong-doer understand that there will be a collective punishment – for example, the mother’s or brother’s house/business will be burned down.