Free Essay Example on The Social Contract

Introduction

If I had a chance to escape the prison to another country or remain in hiding in the US, I would do so. There is no social contract between the United States and me since social contact requires us to unquestionably endorse the verdict by the justice system even though it may be unfair like my case (Rousseau, 1998). Unquestioning some court outcome is wrong since some sentences are maybe unjust. Though I lost the case, I was not guilty of the crime. In the trial of Socrates, he believed in social contact, and he served his death sentence despite being innocent and having the chance to escape and save his life (Barrow, 2012). Correction facilities should change the wrongdoers in the society so that they don’t pose a threat to others (Klofas, 2019). In this scenario, I do not represent any threat; therefore, there is no social contact between me and the United States in this scenario.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Social Contract

On the contrary, if I were binded by the social contract in the united states, I should comply with the jury's verdict and serve my whole jail sentence. According to Rousseau (1998), social contract acts as a guardian of morality such that all people would have to obey the law, and therefore citizens would maintain the order. In this scenario, the attorney who represented me was genuinely fair and the guilty verdict unanimous. The purpose of a penitentiary is to rehabilitate people before they are set free (Klofas 2019). Therefore, I would maintain good behavior and avoid cases of indiscipline in jail for the jail sentence to be reduced to ten years.

According to Rousseau (1998), the purpose of social contact and correctional facilities is to ensure that the inmates have their characters changes so that they cannot pose a threat to the society, for this reason. I believe in the social contract since its purpose is to keep the nation safe. I was not guilty of the crime the jury sentenced for; therefore, being in jail would be a waste of time and government resources. The escape was not meant to ensure that I do not serve my legitimate sentence but to help the criminal justice system meet its mandate of keeping the threats to humanities behind bars, not people who have not committed federal offenses.

Punishment

The kind of punishment would not change my behavior since I was innocent of the crime. The purpose of the sentence, according to Klofas (2019), is to correct behaviors. There was no behavior that I was supposed to alter as per the US constitution since I was innocent of the crime through the jury rendered a guilty verdict. Therefore, serving a sentence even if it was one year would not only be wasting time but the government's resources. However, if I were guilty of the crime, I would ensure that I serve my sentence and correct all my behaviors not to be a threat to society.

Conclusion

The criminal justice system ensures that a jury from the court of appeal can recall a decision by other judges (Klofas, 2019). Therefore, I would advise my sibling/child to appeal the case, and if the sentence remains, I will counsel them to plan on how to escape. In prison, their character may be changed for the worse instead of correcting them. A study on innocent inmates by Midson (2019) shows that most of the innocent people of a crime they serve a jail term for, they come from jail even worse than they got in. Therefore, their serving a sentence was terrible for their character as they learn many criminal activities after spending time with real criminals.

References

Barrow, R. (2012). Plato and education (RLE Edu K).
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203140000

Klofas, J. M. (2019). The jail and the community. Justice Quarterly, 7(1), 69-102.

Midson, B. (2019). Innocent victims and vulnerable offenders: The Journal of Criminal Law, 83(5), 352-369.

Rousseau, J.-J., & Tozer, H. J. (1998). The social contract: Or, principles of the political right. Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions Ltd.