Article posted on The Freedom Articles (click link for original)

Modern day propaganda is all around us. However, people have usually become so numb to it that they can no longer perceive it. Many people choose ignorance, complacency or apathy to deal with it. Often you can observe groups developing societal Stockholm Syndrome, where they praise they captors out of a forlorn hope that by doing so that may somehow change things or alleviate the pain. The control system uses all of its tentacles to keep people conditioned to a more a sheeplike and unconscious state. It is the politician’s job to lie, the MSM (mainstream media’s) job to program you and Big Pharma’s job to keep you sedated with synthetic petrochemical drugs. It is a constant battle to broaden your awareness, uplift your consciousness and expand your perception in the face of these forces which seek to imprison humanity in a limited perception of Who We Are, who’s running the world, how they’re doing it and how we can change it. Propaganda does not just belong to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Modern day propaganda is everywhere; sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, always pervasive.

With that in mind, here is a collection of the top 7 pieces of modern day propaganda, part 1 of a series.

Modern Day Propaganda in Geopolitics

1. The Syrian War is a civil war. False. The Syrian War has never been a civil war; it’s a proxy war fought by foreign fighters with foreign aid. It has become an open secret that the US-UK-Israeli axis, along with the Saudis, have either created or are funding ISIS (or both). Evidence keeps coming to light showing that Israel is paying Syrian rebels and that ISIS gets their weaponry and Toyota trucks from the US. Many “rebels” fighting the Syrian Government of Bashar Al Assad are not even Syrian. Remember Obama’s freudian slip that “we’re training ISIL”?

2. The US is fighting ISIS in Syria. False. ISIS (aka Daesh, ISIL, IS) is the pet Frankenstein of the Anglo-American-Zionsit NWO and is a US-Israeli creation. The US has no real interest in defeating ISIS – at least not until ISIS has caused the maximum amount of chaos designed to unseat legitimate governments and facilitate regime change. The real target has always been Assad (then Iran, then Russia and China). There is copious evidence for this; 2 quick examples are the incessant mantra a few years ago that “Assad must go” (until the NWO controllers realized Assad was strong enough to defend himself and his nation) and the recent shooting down by the US Coalition of an SAA (Syrian Arab Army) jet.

3. All the refugees flowing into Europe are genuine refugees. False. Some (or many, depending on your perspective) refugees are economic migrants. They are being helped by a network of NGOs (e.g. those funded by George Soros) who have an entire system of transporting migrants from Libya to Italy for money. It’s people smuggling / human trafficking. For the background to this and further analysis, see the article Mass Migration to Europe: All in Line with the New World Order.

4. US military intervention abroad makes us safer. What a load of nonsense! When he ran for US president in 2012, Ron Paul made a point of emphasizing the concept of blowback (which the CIA had written about) in some of his speeches. UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn recently had the courage to state the obvious in Britain: “Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home”. When a poorer and less militarily developed nation is picked on and attacked by a rich bully nation, the former is likely to harbor resentment and a desire to retaliate in the future. many North Koreans still hate the US for carpet bombing into oblivion after WW2. Therefore, Western foreign meddling, assassination and invasion has made America the new “Satan” and enemy #1 for many people around the world, and has become one of the motivations for attacks on England, France and Germany. Thus, the US is far more likely to be attacked than if it had not intervened.

5. Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Flat out false. While Iran may support Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran has nothing on Saudi Arabia, who funds a pervasive network of extremist Wahhabi Islam schools (madrases) worldwide. It is utterly ridiculous and beyond hypocritical that Saudi Arabia now accuses Qatar of terrorism. Israel has also been behind many so-called “Muslim” and “Arab” terror incidents. Israel and Saudi Arabia now form a dark alliance – with the assistance of the US Empire, the biggest purveyor of war (and terrorism through funding it) the world has ever known. The US Government learnt its tricks from the UK Government, both of which have been tools in the hands of the New World Order. The US alternatively backs and then disowns “terrorists” or local fighters in certain areas (e.g. Central America or the Middle East) as the NWO agenda dictates. Once a group has outlived its usefulness, the nomenclature changes from “freedom fighters / liberators” to “enemy combatants / terrorists”.

6. Russia is the biggest threat the Western world is facing. Not true. At every turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps insisting that Russia does not view the US an as enemy, that the 2 great nations were on the same side for both world wars and that mutual cooperation is the only way forward. The US ignominiously lied after the collapse of the Soviet Union by promising Russia that NATO would not expand eastwards – and meanwhile keeps adding numerous Eastern and Central European nations to its alliance such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (1999), then Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2002-2004), Albania and Croatia (2009) and Montenegro (2017). Russophobia is a convenient political tool to justify NATO, get people scared and allow bigger domestic military budgets in Western nations. It’s also a handy scapegoat for the Democrats to use in trying to account for the election loss of the incredible corrupt Hillary Clinton. Trump saw the obvious truth that it’s better for everyone if the US and Russia get along – before the Deep State got to him.

7. Israel is only defending itself. False. Israel attacked its neighbors even before it gained official statehood in 1948, attacked Egypt to begin the 6 Day War in 1967, attacked Lebanon in 1982 and has been seizing Palestinian land ever since its inception. There’s noting “defensive” about raw, naked aggression. The truth is that Zionism is a colonial endeavor. Look at the quotes of early Zionists like Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one of the main men behind the expansionist, militaristic and anti-Arab form of Israeli nationalism that now dominates the Likud Party and Israeli politics. Take a look at what Jabotinsky, as well as former Israeli prime Ministers David Ben Gurion and Ariel Sharon, have said about Zionism and the fact that it is intimately bound up with colonialism, eviction and expropriation:

Conclusion: Geopolitical Modern Day Propaganda is Rife

Modern day propaganda in the sphere of geopolitics is dangerously widespread. With people buying into the lies, distortions and disinformation listed above, conflict and war is much more likely to be started. Stay tuned for part 2.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.

Article posted on Waking Times (click link for original)

In a world where defense budgets are astronomical and wars of occupation and destabilization never end, political leaders in the UK and in Europe want you accept street level terror as the new everyday normal. The attacks are unstoppable, they say, and the world must embrace this hopelessness with faith that the government is doing all it can to create a better, safer world. Run, hide, and call the authorities, for you are helpless in this reality, so they say. But who creates and sustains this reality?

Terrorism is defined as the use of violence in the pursuit of political aims, and as politicians respond to terrorism by holding news conferences, posing, grandstanding, eulogizing, weeping for the cameras, applauding first responders and proposing legislation, so many of the important questions which can help guide us out of such a gloomy future are going unasked and unanswered. And these questions are always the same for any of these attacks, be it the London attacks, Manchester, Orlando, the Boston marathon, 7/7 or 9/11.

Here are three things we should be always ask about when Islamic terror , all of which are fair questions for any of the major terror attacks happening in Western nations.

1. In what ways do Western governments contribute to the problem of Islamic terror?

The media wants you to believe that this type of terror is unrelated to government policies and actions, thus attempting to divorce them from the greater context of geopolitics and the decades long push toward globalist world government. But how do Western governments contribute to the problem of terrorism?

Do never-ending occupations of Middle Eastern conditions and the wrecking of stable nations contribute to terrorism? Does supplying arms and financial support to known terrorist organizations make attacks in Western nations more likely? Does bombing infrastructure, hospitals and civilians in foreign nations play a role? Does promoting and supporting the massive influx of Middle Eastern and African migrants into Western nations have an effect? Does permitting known radicals and others on terror watch lists to operate freely in the West make it more likely that events like the London Bridge attack will occur? Does preventing and punishing people for speaking out in defense of their own nations and customs contribute to the situation?

2. How does government benefit from the reaction to the problem?

Terror creates fear, insecurity, panic, uncertainty, chaos, anger, hate and irrationality, and none are more easily lorded over than those living in terror. Historically, governments make exceptional gains in power and authority when their citizens are psychologically abused.

3. What is the pre-packaged government solution to the problem?

In the case of the London Bridge attacks, the very next day, UK Prime Minister Theresa May called for government regulation of the internet, a demand which is now being echoed by wise politicians and pundits. But this measure was already being floated, it just a dramatic push for it to gain popularity.

Whether it is the Patriot Act, the pre-planned invasion of Afghanistan, calls to restrict the 2nd Amendment, greater government surveillance, increased spending on war and police state security measures, the detainment of innocent people or torture of detainees, the government always has a solution in place before an attack happens.

Final Thoughts

Accepting terror as the norm is absolutely unacceptable and must be totally rejected by people who wish to live in peace and prosperity, which will forever remain impossible while government is allowed to contribute and benefit from terror.

Article posted on Atlanta Blackstar (click link for original)

By D. Amari Jackson

On December 20, 1996, in the Colombian riverside village of Riosucio, the mass killings of Afro-Colombians began. At the time, though the country’s relentless civil war between the government and rebel groups had raged for decades, much of the violence had spared the rural, mineral-rich region of Choco where 85 percent of residents are Afro-Latino. That would brutally change as paramilitary death squads—backed by powerful government and commercial interests both in Colombia and the United States—murdered hundreds and displaced thousands in response to the establishment of residential land rights by Afro-Colombians in Riosucio and nearby towns. The violence would continue and, despite a November 2016 treaty officially ending the five-decade conflict, consume the region while substantially contributing to the current displacement of 2 million Afro-Colombians.

The killing has not stopped. On April 28—prompted by the “increasing number of murders, death threats and attacks against social leaders and human rights defenders”—congressmen Keith Ellison and Georgia’s Hank Johnson penned an urgent letter to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos encouraging “the Colombian government to investigate and bring to justice the persons responsible for the murders of ethnic activists, leaders and community members. It is imperative that Colombia’s armed forces and police understand it is their responsibility to protect civilians, particularly in areas like the Choco and Tumaco, where reports indicate that paramilitary groups operate in zones where the armed forces are present. Cases of alleged collusion or omission of duty by government forces also demand investigation.”

The genocide—or what some have labeled “ethnocide”—has much to do with both race and land. While constituting a quarter of the country’s population, Afro-Colombians have little to no voice or representation in government, media or industry. Close to 80 percent of Afro-Colombians live below the poverty line despite the coca, gold and other minerals beneath their feet. Their Pacific Basin region is one of the most bio-diverse in the world, yet this natural abundance of resources and beauty has prompted multinational corporations and paramilitaries to force them from their land with campaigns of blood and terror.

“The leaders of these communities have been particularly targeted by these paramilitary groups because they see them as opposing their economic projects and seeking justice in cases where they have illegally appropriated land,” says Gimena Sánchez, a leading Colombia human rights advocate at the Washington Office on Latin America. “And, unfortunately, the situation just does not get visibility.” The Colombian government doesn’t help, continues Sanchez, since they are “denying there are paramilitaries” that still exist.

Unfortunately, Columbia is not alone. In numerous Latin American countries, Afro-Latinos have been subject to disproportionate violence, government neglect and discrimination. In Brazil, the Latin American country with the largest Black population, an estimated 65 percent of Afro-Brazilians live in dire poverty while violence is the leading cause of death for Black men. In a number of countries with smaller Afro-Latino populations, entrenched poverty, racism and a lack of representation commonly plague their group plight.

Still, in Colombia, the level of violence has been historic with civil war death toll estimates as high as a quarter of a million people. Since the 1960s, the US-backed government and powerful commercial interests have battled rebel groups—primarily the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN)—over land, resources, representation and control of the country’s lucrative drug trade. In the mid-1990s, after Law 70 was passed to establish Afro-Colombians’ rights to their own ancestral lands, well-armed paramilitaries began their brutal assault on the region’s dark inhabitants by murdering those involved in passing the law.

As international outrage over the ongoing war and human rights crisis grew, Alvaro Uribe was elected president in 2002 upon his promise to stabilize the country and reduce the violence. Ostensibly, Uribe performed the task by doubling the military, cracking down on rebel groups, promoting a new national image, and claiming to have disarmed paramilitary groups. But while much of the violence ceased in affluent urban areas, mining and agricultural companies continued to employ paramilitaries in the areas dominated by Colombia’s African descendants.

In September 2012, current president Juan Manuel Santos began peace talks with FARC in Havana, Cuba. Four years later, on August 24, 2016, an initial peace agreement was announced. However, a month and a half later, a referendum to ratify the deal was rejected by voters. Instead of holding a second referendum, on November 24, the Colombian government and the FARC signed a revised deal and sent it to Congress where it was ratified a week later. As a result of promoting the Afro-Colombian cause in the US along with similarly-minded advocacy groups in both countries, Marino Cordoba—leader of the Association for Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES)—traveled to Havana and secured text in the final accord aimed at improving the plight of his people. The chapter acknowledges the persecution of Afro-Colombians “as a product of colonialism, slavery, marginalization and dispossession from their land, territory and resources” while confirming their land titles and “their human and collective rights.”

Tragically, this significant feat has yet to stop the violence or the ongoing land grab. Numerous Afro-Colombian leaders have been assassinated during and since the peace agreement including Cordoba’s son and two other family members. And last week’s letter from congressmen Ellison and Johnson identifies ongoing actions by the Santos regime that bring “into question the government’s commitment to protecting the rights of ethnic minorities in the country.”

Sanchez notes, “There’s been a peace process, however there’s been a rise in the targeting and killing of minorities in the past year.”

The US needs to get serious, insists Sanchez, about pressuring Colombia through the enforcement of “human rights conditions on their military aid.” She points out the two countries actually have a “Racial Action Plan” in place aimed at improving the plight of Afro-Colombians, and that a resolution is being developed by the Congressional Black Caucus to push State Department policy to have a more constructive impact upon Afro-descendants in the Diaspora, including Latin America.

Sanchez adds the US should “take the lead” on pushing such initiatives forward to make “a major difference for Latin American countries and signal to them the importance of these issues.”

With the recent United Nations Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2349 condemning terrorism and encouraging military cooperation in Africa’s Lake Chad Basin, an international spotlight will once again be cast upon the contested region near Nigeria’s northeast border. While much attention was justifiably given to the kidnapping of 276 school girls by the militant group Boko Haram in 2014, little attention has been paid to the increasing role of AFRICOM— a U.S.-led military entity officially labeled the United States Africa Command— and its claims in its professed mission to protect and stabilize the region.

Even less attention has been given to why AFRICOM was created in the first place. The organization touts its “core mission of assisting African states and regional organizations to strengthen their defense capabilities better enables Africans to address their security threats and reduces threats to U.S. interests.” However, given Africans did not ask for their assistance — AFRICOM was forced to set up headquarters in Germany in 2008 because they were not welcome on the continent — some question both its presence and its very existence as an organization.

“There are those of us who believe there are ulterior motives and other agendas in play,” says Mark P. Fancher, an attorney and blogger who has followed AFRICOM since its inception.

Fancher acknowledges the eight-year Boko Haram insurgency against the Nigerian government and how most of the news coming out of the region is concentrated on acts of terrorism and human rights atrocities. But, he clarifies the incomplete nature of such accounts.

“The other thing that has been going on there for about 30 years is exploration for oil,” says Fancher, explaining “they believe they’re getting closer to being able to actually extract deposits and make it a new source of oil.”

As far back as 2008, years before the international community had even heard of the imposed moniker Boko Haram, the militant group had successfully run Chinese oil interests out of the potentially lucrative region. Recent estimates from the Nigerian government and related industry experts have hovered around two billion barrels of oil with roughly 14.65 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas in the Chad Basin.

Within the past few months, Fancher says, AFRICOM “has taken it upon itself to assemble representatives for military forces in the region, along with a few European military forces, to chart out a plan for stabilizing the region specifically with respect to Boko Haram.” Well prior to the recent UN Security Council Resolution, he notes, AFRICOM had targeted April for “plotting out a military offensive against Boko Haram.”

It’s certainly not the first time AFRICOM has plotted such an offensive on African soil. In fact, its rapid expansion on the continent can mostly be credited to the dramatic events of October 2011 as Western air strikes lit up the skies of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The Obama-backed NATO coalition had targeted longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi — considered for years to be the most powerful man in Africa, given his former chairmanship of the African Union and the stable, oil-rich nation he led for 42 years — for regime change ostensibly to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and “an immediate ceasefire” in Libya, including an end to “current attacks against civilians.”

However, ulterior Western motives were apparent from the beginning of the mission. One that moved from protecting “citizens” to facilitating “regime change” to break Gaddafi’s powerful influence on the continent. As founder, primary funder and a former chair of the African Union who’d committed billions to establishing the continent’s independence from foreign manipulation—he worked toward a continental gold standard and the creation of an African Union Development Bank—Gaddafi posed a serious roadblock to foreign business interests in Africa and was a vocal critic at times of western intervention in Africa. Consistently, AFRICOM’s 2008 establishment of its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, rather than in Africa itself was largely a result of the Libyan leader’s cash and investment offerings to African nations who rejected U.S. requests for continental military bases. With Gaddafi eliminated, AFRICOM now has a presence by way of projects, operations or engagements in almost every country on the continent.

Such motives are far from unprecedented. The Berlin Conference, initiated in 1884, systematized Europe’s imperial desires and ushered in an era of brutal colonial activity that squashed existing forms of African self-governance for land grabs and the extraction of the continent’s natural resources. Such repression was abetted by numerous Western oil companies in the 20^th century which, despite mid-century independence movements, still maintained a considerable influence over Africa’s economic and political activities. Fast forward to 2008 and one could question how much has changed given the creation of AFRICOM amidst a steadily increasing Chinese footprint on the continent and an American desire to reestablish itself through the threat or use of military might. The 2011 NATO coalition that both stoked and capitalized upon Libyan civil unrest represents a 21^st-century continuum of the imperial policies established in Berlin long ago.

The emergence of armed insurgents like Boko Haram, in Nigeria has recently over-shadowed its recognition as Africa’s most populous nation, its largest economy and biggest oil producer. Given ongoing corruption and the foreign extraction of much-needed resources and revenues, large parts of the country lack basic infrastructure while disparities in wealth and education are substantial. Such inequity and instability provide a breeding ground for reaction and ideological fervor.

And once the terror spreads, what better way to capitalize upon such instability then to wage conflicts by proxy where Western business interests can appear as if their hands are clean while extracting oil revenues to the tune of billions? Or, as Dan Glazebrook stated in his May 2012 article for Counterpunch, “The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan showed the West that wars in which their own citizens get killed are not popular. … AFRICOM is designed to ensure that in the coming colonial wars against Africa, it will be Africans who do the fighting and dying, not Westerners.”

But in person or by proxy, “AFRICOM has no business in Africa in the first place,” Fancher says. “To the extent there are military needs, Africa has its own armies and those are the military forces most appropriate for addressing the security concerns within their own countries.”

What they don’t need, Fancher continues, is “the United States jumping into these situations.”

But, he adds, “the U.S. does it because it has its own agenda.”

Article posted on Atlanta Blackstar (click link for original)

By David Love

Rikers Island is closing. Although it will not happen overnight and will likely take years to accomplish, the behemoth complex of jails known for its brutality, torture and other human rights abuses will be shut down. Over the years, Rikers has earned the reputation as America’s most notorious prison.

In a March 31 press conference with New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the 10-year plan to close Rikers.

“New York City has always been better than Rikers Island. I am proud to chart a course for our city that lives up to this reality,” de Blasio said. “Our success in reducing crime and reforming our criminal justice system has paved a path off Rikers Island and toward community-based facilities capable of meeting our criminal justice goals.”

Noting that Rikers Island is part of a national problem, the mayor said that, while the mass-incarceration problem did not begin in New York, it will end there. Since the facility opened in 1932, this marks the first time the city has made closing Rikers its official policy.

Mayor de Blasio tweeted about the significance of this decision:

Shutting down Rikers Island is different than shutting down any other jail. It’s closing the ultimate example of mass incarceration.

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 6, 2017

Although the jail has been around for 85 years, Rikers Island has an older history fittingly steeped in the enslavement of Black people. As Vice reported, the Rikers (the Anglicized version of Rycken) were a wealthy Dutch family that settled the island in the 1660s at a time when New York was still known as New Amsterdam. From 1815 to 1838, the family patriarch, Richard Riker, oversaw the city’s criminal court. Part of his responsibilities included deeming free Black children, women and men as “fugitive slaves,” allowing for their kidnapping to the South by bounty hunters without a trial. Riker received kickbacks from slave catchers, and he and two slave-catching police officers were known as the “Kidnapping Club” by abolitionists.

Sadly, this sordid history of Rikers Island has continued to plague the facility, which is the second-largest in America after Los Angeles County Jail. The conglomeration of 10 jails sitting on the 400-acre island houses mostly men (93 percent), but also women and juveniles. Throughout a given year, 77,000 people go through Rikers, with 10,000 inmates detained on a given day. In the 1980s and 1990s, the jail population was double current numbers. The prison population is 89 percent Black and Latino (56 percent African-American and 33 percent Latino) — from New York’s low-income communities — and only 7.5 percent white.

Eighty-five percent of Rikers inmates have not been convicted of a crime and are pretrial detainees, with the rest serving short sentences of a year or less, as The New York Times reports. Around 40 percent of detainees have a mental illness, according to the Urban Institute.

The decision to close Rikers comes in the midst of longstanding problems of violence, brutality and inhumane living conditions for those detained there. For example, mentally ill detainees have died in custody. Rikers continues to place inmates in solitary confinement, an internationally condemned form of physical and psychological torture, with Black and Latino inmates subjected to the punishment at a much higher rate than whites.

According to a report from the federal monitor overseeing Rikers since 2015, the abuse continues, with guards using excessive force at an “alarming rate.” For example, it is common for correction officers to place inmates in chokeholds, punch them in the head while handcuffed, slam them into walls and douse them with pepper spray. The jails also are an environmental disaster, with regular flooding, crumbling infrastructure with dilapidated facilities, a putrid landfill and pollution-belching power plant, and overheated conditions that have given Rikers the nickname “The Oven,” as Grist reported. With no central air conditioning in the summer months, some prisoners have suffered from cardiovascular conditions, heat stroke, rashes and asthma, and some have attempted suicide. One homeless veteran was baked to death in his hot cell that overheated to at least 100 degrees from faulty equipment.

Things came to a head with the story of Kalief Browder, who was arrested and sent to Rikers at age 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He was never charged. While there, in a story revealed by The New Yorker, Browder endured three years of torture at Rikers, including beatings by guards from his first day behind bars, and starvation. After his release, Browder committed suicide in June 2015 at age 22, using an air conditioning cord to hang himself. This was a consequence of depression from the abuse he had suffered. The Marshall Project interviewed his mother, Venida Browder, for a video series called We Are Witnesses.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James wants to rename the island after Browder, given the planned shuttering of the infamous jail.

NYC politician wants to rename Rikers Island after Kalief Browder https://t.co/IFKXCsWVkR pic.twitter.com/iCv8J1bZVR

— Okayplayer (@okayplayer) April 3, 2017

The UN states 15 days straight in solitary is torture. #KaliefBrowder spent over 300 consecutive days in solitary at 17 y/o. #EndMoneyBail pic.twitter.com/kKsi9T8n3l

— ColorOfChange.org (@ColorOfChange) April 3, 2017

Although de Blasio has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to improving conditions at Rikers, the time has come to phase out America’s most notorious jail. A report unveiled by the Independent Commission on NYC Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform maps out a plan to shut down the jail. Condemning the facility as a “19^th-century solution to a 21^st-century problem,” the commission calls for reducing the jail population by half to 5,000 and placing the remaining inmates in new facilities around the city.

The report makes a number of other recommendations, including reforming arrests by diverting tens of thousands of low-level offenders from traditional prosecution and reducing the number of people in pretrial detention so that people do not have to wait months or years in jail for the resolution of their cases.

“Finally, we recommend an approach to punishment that prioritizes meaningful sentences and a judicious use of incarceration for all types of cases,” the report said.

Rikers Island has been used as a torture chamber for Black people for far too long. Its end will come, though not soon enough.