What is a just punishment? Does it even exist? For the passionate and eloquent criminal lawyer Thomas Fischer, it is about what holds our society together: a self-imposed set of rules, our legal system, which depends on many conditions and is in constant motion. No other area of law is as much in the public eye as criminal law. As the foundation of state action, it promises security; but it is also a place where fundamental questions of social life, freedom, and responsibility are negotiated and discussed. Fischer's thesis: criminal law is communication and violence. No one knows its development better than the former federal judge, who is well-known far beyond his professional circles.