This smart lady works for the Magnus Awesome Americum and wanted to know why the prison ships sparkling about the Death Star like all of the stars in the night sky were becoming so much of a drag on the tractor beam. I, Smartassacus, could have told her as my lesser slave girls waved fronds above us and she plucked me only the sweetest grapes—but alas, she is a smart girl…

Apparently, as the New Jersey State’s Attorney, she discovered that those cops were doing the same thing cops across America have been doing since Nixon issued the first pair of antidrug storm-trooper boots: namely filling the local jails and distant prisons by stepping outside of the courthouse at lunchtime, ordering dope instead of a dog, and locking up the street vendor and or legitimate customers, and otherwise beating the shit out of and locking up any fool stupid enough to run his mouth to an imperial enforcer.

On her way to suggesting a more rational method for incarcerating as many dumbasses as possible, Anne lets us in on the following facts, small and big:

1. Only 5% of judges use objective risk assessment methods for determining if a person in their court is going to show up for his trial or commit a violent crime while awaiting trial.

2. 67% of criminals come back to prison, which does speak highly of the accommodations I suppose.

3. 50% of violent offenders are released on bail! Witnesses to violent crimes take note.

4. Less than 5% of American inmates have been charged with or convicted of committing a violent crime.

5. A Texas man who stole 4 blankets for his own use was unable to make bail, and languished in jail for 8 months, at the cost of $9,000.

6. Anne and her team of crime geeks can predict the likelihood that someone will commit a violent crime while on bail or probation by looking at the answers to 9 questions.

7. Currently, almost no one is asking these questions.

Really babe, what’s the point? The whole idea is to fill prison beds right? What is it that you don’t understand about that?