Introduction Criminal justice and security is one of the largest industries in the United States. Such a statistic (rightly) concerns African Americans, as a disproportionate percentage of individuals under the control of the U.S. criminal justice system come from the Black community. This article will examine the alarming statistics and attempt to trace the roots of the disparity. It will then examine the effects and explore possible solutions to this growing problem. Imprisoned Black Youth Black communities across the United States are witnessing the institutionalization of their youth. Of course, institutionalization is nothing new for African Americans; this is a problem that black people have faced for their entire existence in this country. At first, black people were forced into slavery. After the abolition of slavery, black people were confronted with institutional racism, that is, racism legitimized by the whole of society and directed against a minority. In the face of this institutional racism, Black people are now forced to persevere in the growing trend of control exerted by the American criminal justice system. The control exercised by the USCJS includes probation, parole, imprisonment, and death of black people. A study conducted by the Sentencing Project in 1989 found that more than a quarter of all blacks ages 20 to 29 are under USCJS custody. This alarming figure becomes even more alarming when you consider that there are more black people in prison in this age group than there are all black people in college. This clearly reveals what is meant by the institutionalization of our black youth. Black communities are legally deprived of their youth by a system that locks up those who pose a threat to the status quo of institutional racism. The consequences are indeed harmful. Children are the future, but what future does a community have whose children are all locked up? By depriving the Black community of its youth, the USCJS is depriving Black communities of their future leaders and role models. With such a situation, entire communities are lost and the ills of urban ghettos are increased. To explain why black people are locked up and what role imprisonment plays in institutional racism, it would be helpful to first examine the roots of institutional racism. Institutional Racism and Its Roots Institutional racism is a term first coined by Stokley Carmichael in his book Black Power. . Regarding racism, Carmichael and his co-author Charles V. Hamilton made the following observation: Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks and actions by whites as a whole..