Maimonides, philosopher: "The crime that is committed most repeatedly should be punished more severely"'

Democratic society is governed by rights and obligations, and failing to comply with certain laws can lead to imprisonment . This way of punishing offenses and crimes involves the deprivation of liberty and, usually, the length of the sentence imposed varies according to the severity, but for some, such as the philosopher Maimonides , this type of approach is not entirely correct.

The also rabbi and Hispano-Jewish physician once said: “The crime that is committed most repeatedly should be punished more severely” . This idea suggests that sentences should be harsher for those types of offenses and crimes that are seen most often in a court and not those less common in a society.

Harsher punishment for the crimes most repeatedly committed in society

Maimonides' thinking involves accepting that the rarest crimes should be accompanied by lighter punishments , since he considers that they can be corrected more easily. Meanwhile, the fact that some crimes are committed lightly in a society is because their punishments are not strong enough and, therefore, there is no incentive to stop committing them.

Maimonides was known for questioning the school of thought based on ‘an eye for an eye.’ According to the philosopher, criminal law aims to maintain social order , but if an offense carries very lenient penalties, it is because the punishment is not strong enough to prevent society from continuing to take advantage of breaking the laws.

This is why, based on the rabbi's belief, the punishment must be proportional to the number of times that crime has been committed . In fact, it is better understood with the second part of Maimonides' quote, which goes as follows: “Those that occur only as a rare case can be corrected and suppressed by means of lighter penalties.”