Robbie's straightforwardness was something Josephine appreciated; for all that she indulged in small talk, for all that she encouraged the drinking of tea and the idle reflection of the day, she found tiresome the sheer enormity of effort that went into cultivating friendships and creating an approachable interface for those friendships. Her natural inclinations were to snappy, quick, blunted encounters, involved primarily in getting to the point -- and no amount of pretending, for nearly thirty years, could change that, even if she'd come to enjoy some parts of the eternal play that her life was spent acting out. Even now, with the prospect of conversation moving where she wanted it, immediately, she took a moment to pour milk into her tea and to stir it, with slow, even turns of her spoon. If she could have slowed even her heart, she would have, so determined was she to present a façade of calmness.
Giving Robbie a smile, a reward of sorts, a subtle encouragement that his getting to the point was not at all unwelcome, she sipped her tea and then reached for a file. She didn't tear through them briskly, as she was wont to do in private, but lay them in her lap, carefully thumbing the folder open. She had a variety of her own thoughts, but she preferred to use Robbie's as a starting point; if things went poorly it would be easy to assign blame away from her -- and if they went well, she would be sure her contributions were invaluable.
"Yes," she mused, voice warm and soft, thoughtful in a languid sort of way, though her mind raced. "Yes, I like this. I do have some thoughts on a potential re-education centre." Re-education sounded much better than brainwashing and torture, but Josephine didn't shy away from those words internally. She believed in brutality and breaking people down until they could be rebuilt from the ground up. She believed in power and obedience. She didn't believe in rehabilitation so much as re-creation. But... manners. "Perhaps even Ministry sectioned housing. I know I probably sound like a terrible optimist, but I think that criminals can learn to work together and to become contributing members of society. We simply have to give them the tools to do so. It's difficult to leave Azkaban after months and years and pick up where things left off."