The United States Constitution and the Social Contract

This opening chapter sets the stage for the central thesis of this book: appreciating and interpreting the United States Constitution as the agreement—the Social Contract—between the People and their Government. For too long, morally questionable and unpopular actions taken by law enforcement officers and officials have been explained away by the popular refrain, “awful but lawful” (Foody, 2021). “Social contract theories provide that rational individuals will agree by contract, compact, or covenant to give up the condition of unregulated freedom in exchange for the security of a civil society governed by a just, binding rule of law. The legal system of the United States has an important relationship to social contract theory” (Allen, 1999, p. 2).

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1. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University, Brooklyn Park, MN, USA Charles E. MacLean & James A. Densley

1. Charles E. MacLean

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MacLean, C.E., Densley, J.A. (2023). The United States Constitution and the Social Contract. In: Police, Prosecutors, Courts, and the Constitution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39082-1_2

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