1st issue I ever wrote please please give me feedback and a score as well if possible

[kaushal]

TOPIC:

 

"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."

 

ESSAY:

 

Social obligations of every human being require that one strives to

maintain a peaceful, wholesome and mutually beneficial environment around

oneself. Every country across the globe ensures the safety of its citizens

through laws which prevent people from causing harm to anyone else,

physically, financially, psychologically or socially. Therefore any person

who breaches his social contract by knowingly committing a crime must be

divested of his civil rights and the right to benefit from his own labor but only if the offence was perpetrated with selfish and

ulterior motives.

Crimes as defined by legislative bodies and constitutions across the

world encompass physical injury and harm, destruction of property, sexual

abuse and even financial frauds and swindling. A person may commit a crime

either for selfish and iniquitous motives or for a more wholesome goal

which may require committing the crime in order to prevent something worse

from happening.

A plethora of cases are witnessed by us where someone is compelled

to commit an offence, even as grave as murder in order to protect himself

or his family. In such a scenario it is unjust to consider the perpetrator

to have broken the social contract and deprive him of his fundamental

civil rights. Thus, although wilfully having committed the crime the

person is actually not a criminal.

Other examples of such cases would include petty offences like breaking

speed limits in order to rush someone seriously ill to the hospital; or

even to cheat someone of his money and property only to prove later to the

federal state that the victim himself was someone worthy of conviction for

excessively large frauds. In such situations we observe that although the

person at fault has committed a crime, the end effects are salutary and

infact beneficial to the country or state. It would be very wrong to

punish the delinquent in such a case because he has infact done far more

good than bad and ultimately he has conscientiously committed the offence

inorder to improve or atleast safeguard the state and its citizens from

something far worse.

However, when it is proved that a crime has been committed knowingly

with selfish and ulterior motives that may be vengeance, anger, envy or

monetary the criminal must be brought to book and stringent punitive

measures must be taken against him. In such scenarios the maleficent does

not only break his social obligation as a citizen but also endangers the

fundamental rights of the victims of his offence. He is responsible to

wilfully cause harm to a citizen who has been guaranteed safety

physically, mentally and financially by the constitution of the country

and so he is actually desecrating the sanctity of the constitution of a

nation. Such an act can never and must never be forgiven, instead, it must

be dealt with an iron hand in order to reduce the crime rate and

discourage wrong-doers.

This is where it is most condign to deprive the criminal of his civil

rights like the right to vote, the right to travel freely in the country

and the right to work anywhere in the country. When a person cannot

respect and safeguard a fellow citizen's civil and fundamental rights he

loses their benefits assured to him. Additionally he must be disallowed

from savoring the benefits of his own labor because in his offence he is

guilty of doing the same to the victim. It is grievous that crimes as

heinous as rape and murder are committed and that the rate of these

offences is not checked adequately even in developed countries, thus it is

not only suitable but also necessary to take rigid steps against the

perpetrators as described above.

Exceptions to the above possibilities must not be overlooked wherein

criminals though having consciously committed the offence, are not liable

to such severe punishments because they suffer from mental or

psychological diseases e.g. depression, split personality, etc.. Here, the

only way to deal with the criminal is treatment and rehabilitation.

All the points discussed above can only be judiciously employed to

decrease crime rates and discourage criminals if the decisions taken

regarding an offence are fair and just. It must never happen that a person

who was compelled to perpetrate an offence to safeguard something or

someone valuable or prevent something worse from happening is punished

undeservedly. Only when people who are really culpable are punished will

the proposition stated earlier be a commendable solution.

[agcr1]

I think it's really good. For me, a nonnative reader, the essay losses some clarity after the third paragraph. But it is OK.

[kaushal]

Thanks agcr1..where do you think I can improve as in content, vocabulary, style, grammar, examples, reasoning..which area do you think I need to work on further?