The reading in Dusseldorf was honoring Heinrich Heine as well, which is to say I was not only reading my from my novel, but an actor was reading a Heinrich Heine text on punishment: “Hier wird einem Menschen der ein Verbrechen beging, Pein angetan, damit ein Dritter dadürch abgeschreckt werde, ein ähnliches Verbrechen zu begehen. Es ist das höchste Unrecht, daß jemand Leiden soll zu Heile eines anderen.”

In other words, the deterrent effect of criminal law is by definition unjust. To punish a criminal in order to deter others from committing the same crime is the highest from of injustice committed against one person in the hope to “heal” another person.

More than 150 years after Heine’s death we haven’t learned much. Probably we should be more skeptical about the human capacity for improvement.
Technical progress should not be confused with moral progress.