diff --git a/mm/oom_kill.c b/mm/oom_kill.c
index 1b076aa6a1e6..3b522b9b2aca 100644
--- a/mm/oom_kill.c
+++ b/mm/oom_kill.c
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ int sysctl_panic_on_oom =
 IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_DEBUG_PANIC_ON_OOM) ? 2 : 0;
 int sysctl_oom_kill_allocating_task;
 int sysctl_oom_dump_tasks = 1;
-int sysctl_reap_mem_on_sigkill;
+int sysctl_reap_mem_on_sigkill = 1;
 
 /*
  * Serializes oom killer invocations (out_of_memory()) from all contexts to