A person who knowingly commits a crime has broken the social contract and should not retain any civil rights or the right to benefit from his or her own labor.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim a

Laws are the basic principles which govern the society and help to run the same smoothly and harmoniously.All the people should abide by the limits circumscribed by the laws and any action violating them is considered as a crime.For this regard i support the authors assertion that any one who commits a crime knowingly should be punished accordingly.

However,my agreement with the authors statement is only partial considering the fact that crime can be of many different forms and the atonement for their crime should be commensurate.It need not necessarily be that any one who is found guilty should not retain any civil rights.For instance,a person who has committed a murder and another person who has violated a traffic law cannot be punished equally.Cancellation of civil rights of the latter for his crime sounds too harsh.However,stringent laws have to made and the punishment for the crimes should be commensurate so that the person doesn't commit the crime again.

On the contrary,there are situations where the person has committed the crime knowingly but may not be considered guilty.For instance if a person has injured/murdered another person just for the sake of self defence then it seems unfair to indict him and cancel his civil rights.Additionally there may also be situations where a person has broken a law knowingly neither intending to cause trouble to others nor with the intention of demonstrating contempt for the law.For e.g if a person has broken the law for the benefit of someone like deviating from a traffic rule to save a person's life.In these type of situations the author's statement might not hold good and the cancellation of civil rights of these people for their crimes sounds insane.

In sum i'd like to conclude that even though the laws should me made stringent and the civil rights of the people committing crime should be cancelled.It should take into account the seriousness of the crime and the situation in which he/she had to commit the crime.