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

Crime is crime whether knowingly or unknowingly. The culprit should deserve the right punishment and should not be allowed to have any civil rights.

The person who has done the crime should know the consequences of the crime he is commiting. He should not enjoy any civil rights such as hiring his advocate etc. as once he/she is allowed to do so they will use this to stall the court. For instance, a famous case in India, where the culprit has used his civil right to stall the case for nearly 4 years which would not have taken more than 1 month if the culprit was deprived of civil rights. The case is the Rape of a 6 month old child. There were all the evidence against the person but because he was able to hire a lawyer who stalled the case for about 4 years before the judgement is done. Moreover the punishment to this type crime is Death sentence but his lawyer proved the culprit as a mental patient and thus reducing the sentence to a life imprisonment.

However, my fellow writes will comment that there are cases in which crime done knowingly was done in such a instance which were out of his/her hand. For instance, if someone at a gun point ask a person to kill or harm the other person, the person would have no choice but to kill the other person in order to save his life. in such a instance depriving of the person of his civil right will not be correct. But, how many such type of cases are there? May be 1 in 1000 or less.

In India, the prison provide the monetary benefit to the culprit for the work they perform like making paper bags, cleaning etc. which in my point of view not correct. The prisoner should not be provided any benefits of the labor he perform but the amount which he will be getting should be forfeited and should be given to the needy, as it will help in keeping them dependent on the prison and will not be able to purchase anything once they left the prison, which in turn will make the culprits to work even when they leave the prison.

To conclude, the person who has done the crime in any circumstance should be deprived of the civil rights and the right to benefit from his or her labor.