For a full month now, the streets around the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, have belonged to the mob. Federal officers have been savagely bitten and pelted with objects. New Jersey State Police pulled in behind riot lines. Arrests have piled up, and the city has implemented a nightly curfew in the area near the facility. Unfortunately, the willingness of state and local officials to challenge the rioters fluctuates daily as the political winds continue to blow.

Plenty of people are pointing fingers. Almost no one is asking the obvious question: How did New Jersey get here?