Příběh na smrt a na život – Tochman Wojciech (2025)

Crime and Punishment in a journalistic edition. The story of an eighteen-year-old girl sentenced to life for her involvement in a brutal murder. The victim, whom she and her friends targeted, was only a few years older. We follow the reconstruction of the act, the investigation, and the media frenzy, while contemplating the boundaries of justice and the possibility of forgiveness.

Wojciech Tochman, as always, arrives only after the emotions have subsided and the tabloid journalists have lost interest. He poses difficult, perhaps even provocative questions. Is the female murderer still so dangerous that she must be behind bars? Why did the media focus primarily on the girl, whom they labeled a 'beast,' even though, unlike the two young men, she did not strike a single blow? What role does life imprisonment play in society?

Horrific crimes and violence have accompanied us since time immemorial, but punishments have changed. They reflect various ways of coping with the worst of all offenses against humanity: the killing of another person. In the spirit of the ancient proverb 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,' we may try to deter other murderers. Gradually, we have begun to think of punishment as a tool to change and rehabilitate individuals, unless we decide that someone is irredeemable. The death penalty has transformed into life imprisonment, but it still arises...