As psychopathy researcher Winifred Rule writes, the cost of psychopathic damage is exorbitant and largely incalculable^[1]. Of course, some costs can be estimated. The cost of prosecuting some psychopaths who have committed multiple murders can run into the millions of dollars. And as psychology professor Dylan Gutner calculated, the economic burden of crime resulting from psychopathy as of 2020 ranges from $245.5 billion to $1.59 trillion per year (1.1–7.4% of GDP) in the case of the United States and from CAD12.14 to CAD53 billion per year (0.5–2.3% of GDP) in the case of Canada^[2]. These are staggering numbers, but even they do not come close to reflecting the full costs of psychopathy.

Psychopaths destroy the lives of their victims, cause great harm to their health and well-being, and make them lose faith in other people and even themselves. Those who have been victimized by psychopaths experience physical, mental, and emotional distress that often leaves them traumatized for the rest of their lives. And this, among other things, has an impact on countless other people who interact with victims of psychopaths.

It is absolutely impossible to calculate the costs to each of the victims of psychopaths, as well as their financial impact on society as a whole. Who can calculate the costs of the many treatments and protocols it takes to heal from the suffering and misery that one psychopath can cause? Consider the many trips to doctors, the cost of medication, the absence from work, and the expense of mental health recovery. And in many cases, the suffering caused by psychopaths will never be ameliorated.

However, that is not all. As psychiatrist Andrew Lobaczewski points out, individuals with primary psychopathy who, because of emotional deficits, have no conscience, lack guilt and remorse for harming people, and behave like predators toward them create pathocracy, a system of government in which a pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people. Exactly such individuals holding political and administrative positions resort to terror and repression in pursuit of their goals. They also make wars, which help to redirect the attention of the population from significant problems to imperialist ambitions and to divide it into loyal and disloyal parts^[3]. The damage that primary psychopaths have done to all of humanity is so enormous that it cannot be quantified in any way.

Despite this, we should not resort to blaming and punishing individuals suffering from psychopathy. The punitive and vindictive approach does not allow people to understand the true nature of their behavior, making it impossible to effectively prevent such behavior in the future. By seeking retribution rather than healing, we will leave future generations with exactly the same problems we have now.

Because the problems we have listed here result from pathology, they must be treated by medical and therapeutic methods, including mandatory therapy for psychopaths. We know that at the core of this pathology is a dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism that, in the case of most healthy people, causes an aversive reaction and a strong inner resistance to harming others^[4]. Accordingly, individuals with psychopathic tendencies should be provided with treatment for this dysfunction.

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