Why are prisons being filled with black men?

Why are young black men portrayed as the faces of crime?

lets look at arrest by race statistics
In the all arrest category:
Whites were arrested in 6,324,006 cases
Blacks were arrested in 2,528,368 cases

In the violent crime arrest category
Whites were arrested in 248,167
Blacks were arrested in 156,718 cases

Forcible rape (does not include child molestation or statutory rape )
Whites were arrested in 11,381 cases,
Blacks were arrested in 6,089 cases

Aggravated Assault:
Whites were arrested in 200,634 cases
Blacks were arrested in 107,494 cases

Property crime arrest category:
Whites were arrested in 713,331
Blacks were arrested in 333,565 cases

"Between 1990 and 2001 the number of Blacks behind bars jumped from 360,000 to 622,200 an increase of 73%." It is reported that Black men (at 28.5%) are six times more likely than are White men (at 4.4%) to be imprisoned. Based on statistics, violent crimes arrest are relatively close between the races, with whites having a three to one arrest margin over blacks in the property crime category.

A disproportion of Black prisoners is contrary to available statistics. With Whites out numbering Blacks in the arrest category, the courts, parole, and probation systems are suspect and should be thoroughly examined. And with blacks only accounting for 14.2% of Michigan's total population, and whites 80.2%. Statistically speaking, whites should be a majority in Michigan's prison population.

Project Exile has shipped off thousands of African-Americans to serve long terms in Federal prisons. In May 31, 1999 AP story by Dominic Perella, then President Bill Clinton, praised Project Exile, "as a national model for fighting gun violence" prosecutors decide which defendants are subject to the 15 to life penalty. And statistics demonstrate, prosecutors, in more cases than not, target inner city defendants - usually black, for Project exile (15 years)

While defendants from outlying counties - usually white, face only state prosecution (5 years), for the same crimes. Miami Florida has a withhold of Adjudication. This is a tool Florida judges and prosecutors can use at their discretion that allows felony offenders to avoid a conviction.
Reported by the Miami Herald January 26 and January 30, 2004 series called Justice Withheld, "receiving a withhold allows you to legally say, you have never been convicted of a crime, even though a court found you guilty." In theory, withholds are handed out sparingly to supposedly deserving people in extenuating circumstances; but the Herald found that in practice, Withhold of Adjudication's "are handed out like Halloween candy." "Four-time losers get withholds." "Rapist and car thieves get withholds." "Drug dealers and batterers get withholds." And if, "you commit fraud or forgery, you've got an even chance of getting one." "Abuse or molest a child and your chances are actually better than even." The most detestable aspect is, the ones enjoying all that judicial mercy, are predominantly white defendants.
A study of the procedure showed, if "a black defendant commits the same crime and has the same record as a white defendant, the white defendant is 50 percent more likely to get a withhold.

Four years before the jena6 incident a Louisiana legislative investigating team sternly warned that the state’s juvenile justice system was horribly mangled. It found that the state couldn’t lock up juveniles fast enough for mostly non-violent crimes. The team noted that the sentences slapped on them were wildly out of proportion to their crimes, and that the kids had almost no access to counseling, job and skills training, and family support programs that could ensure that they didn’t wind up back in the system.

Though alternative sentencing programs are far more cost effective than jailing, they are scarce and under-funded, and Louisiana officials have resisted calls to increase funding and resources to boost these programs. The investigators also found unsurprisingly that black teens were hit with far stiffer sentences than white teens for the same crimes. It made no difference whether the whites had a prior history of criminal or bad behavior and the black teens were alter boys and had a squeaky clean record. The blacks still got harsher sentences. Countless studies show that a black teen is six times more likely to be tried and sentenced to prison than young whites, even when the crimes are similar, or even less severe than those committed by white teens.

Nationally, blacks make up 40 percent of youths tried in adult courts
and nearly 60 percent of those sentenced to state prisons.

The investigators implored the legislature to do something to correct the problem. They came up with a series of reform recommendations. They were largely ignored!!! The criminal justice system's harsh treatment of young blacks, like the Jena teens, fuels the suspicion of many, that judges, prosecutors and probation officers bend way over backwards to give young white offenders the benefit of the doubt. and are far less willing to label and treat, them as dangerous habitual offenders, even when they commit violent crimes. One study of the attitudes of probation officers toward black and white teen offenders found that they were far more likely to attribute black juvenile crimes to family or character flaws such as chronic disrespect toward authority. They were more likely to blame white bad behavior on conditions outside their control such as hanging out with the wrong crowd, or to troubling family conflicts.

From the cradle to the grave, in America, race matters and as it relates to crime, more whites are arrested than blacks but more blacks are in prison.