diff --git a/libprocessgroup/include/processgroup/processgroup.h b/libprocessgroup/include/processgroup/processgroup.h
index dbaeb93..5c43224 100644
--- a/libprocessgroup/include/processgroup/processgroup.h
+++ b/libprocessgroup/include/processgroup/processgroup.h
@@ -67,14 +67,11 @@
 // Return 0 and removes the cgroup if there are no longer any processes in it.
 // Returns -1 in the case of an error occurring or if there are processes still running
 // even after retrying for up to 200ms.
-// If max_processes is not nullptr, it returns the maximum number of processes seen in the cgroup
-// during the killing process.  Note that this can be 0 if all processes from the process group have
-// already been terminated.
-int killProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal, int* max_processes = nullptr);
+int killProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal);
 
 // Returns the same as killProcessGroup(), however it does not retry, which means
 // that it only returns 0 in the case that the cgroup exists and it contains no processes.
-int killProcessGroupOnce(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal, int* max_processes = nullptr);
+int killProcessGroupOnce(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal);
 
 // Sends the provided signal to all members of a process group, but does not wait for processes to
 // exit, or for the cgroup to be removed. Callers should also ensure that killProcessGroup is called
diff --git a/libprocessgroup/processgroup.cpp b/libprocessgroup/processgroup.cpp
index cc2565f..3fa43f8 100644
--- a/libprocessgroup/processgroup.cpp
+++ b/libprocessgroup/processgroup.cpp
@@ -455,8 +455,7 @@
     return (!fd || feof(fd.get())) ? processes : -1;
 }
 
-static int KillProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal, int retries,
-                            int* max_processes) {
+static int KillProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal, int retries) {
     CHECK_GE(uid, 0);
     CHECK_GT(initialPid, 0);
 
@@ -468,16 +467,9 @@
 
     std::chrono::steady_clock::time_point start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
 
-    if (max_processes != nullptr) {
-        *max_processes = 0;
-    }
-
     int retry = retries;
     int processes;
     while ((processes = DoKillProcessGroupOnce(cgroup, uid, initialPid, signal)) > 0) {
-        if (max_processes != nullptr && processes > *max_processes) {
-            *max_processes = processes;
-        }
         LOG(VERBOSE) << "Killed " << processes << " processes for processgroup " << initialPid;
         if (!CgroupsAvailable()) {
             // makes no sense to retry, because there are no cgroup_procs file
@@ -540,12 +532,12 @@
     }
 }
 
-int killProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal, int* max_processes) {
-    return KillProcessGroup(uid, initialPid, signal, 40 /*retries*/, max_processes);
+int killProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal) {
+    return KillProcessGroup(uid, initialPid, signal, 40 /*retries*/);
 }
 
-int killProcessGroupOnce(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal, int* max_processes) {
-    return KillProcessGroup(uid, initialPid, signal, 0 /*retries*/, max_processes);
+int killProcessGroupOnce(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal) {
+    return KillProcessGroup(uid, initialPid, signal, 0 /*retries*/);
 }
 
 int sendSignalToProcessGroup(uid_t uid, int initialPid, int signal) {