What is a just punishment? Does it even exist? For the passionate and verbose criminal lawyer Thomas Fischer, it is about what holds our society together: a self-given set of rules, our legal system, which depends on many conditions and is in constant motion. Criminal law is the focus of public interest like no other legal area. As a basis for state action, it promises security; but it is also a place where fundamental questions of social life, freedom of movement and responsibility are negotiated and discussed. Fischer's thesis: criminal law is communication and violence.