African-American males are being imprisoned at an alarming and unprecedented rate. Out of the 10.4 million Black adult males in the U.S. population, nearly 1.5 million are in prisons and jails with another 3.5 million more on probation or parole or who have previously been on probation or parole. Black males make up nearly 75% of the total prison population, and due to either present or past incarceration is the most socially disenfranchised group of American citizens in the country today. This book details the author's personal story of a negligent upbringing in an impoverished community, his subsequent engagement in criminal activity (drug dealing), his incarceration, and his release from prison and experiencing of the crippling social disenfranchisement that comes with being an ex-felon. The author then relates his personal experiences and realizations to the seminal problems within the African-American community, federal government, and criminal justice system that cause his own experiences to be the same experiences of millions of other young Black men. "Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?" will not only scrutinize specific longstanding problems and certain cultural misgivings within the African-American community, but will also confront how deliberate actions on the part of the federal government and several elected politicians over the past 2 decades paved the way for this crisis to occur and evolve into the present situation where millions of Black men are experiencing social disenfranchisement due to mass criminalization, incarceration, and a faulty criminal justice system. The author identifies and expounds upon three basic problems that are the causative factors behind the mass criminalization and incarceration of African-American males, and provides conclusive supportive facts and statistics to substantiate these identifications. The three problems identified are: (1) Irresponsible and negligent actions on the part of African-Americans, both individually and collectively, past and presently (2) A criminal justice system that has been formulated and designed for the purposes of maintaining a highly visible permanent criminal class within The United States citizenry (3) Racism and an element of right wing White supremacist-minded leadership that has found a way to modernly "re-enslave" and neutralize a large portion of the African-American population through drug proliferation, poverty, miseducation, criminalization and incarceration, and misuse of the law and the criminal justice system, and that has skillfully hidden their agenda by utilizing "political correctness" and a well crafted scheme that uses the law and the law-making process to create and promote an unjust social order. It is the author's aim to display to the reader very clear facts about this crisis of Black male criminalization and disenfranchisement; its origin, development, purpose, and it's affects in terms of how it is stifling all of the other areas of development for African-Americans, and what steps that can be undertaken in order to curb and eventually annihilate this problem. This book also has information that can serve as a guideline for African-Americans on how to change their longstanding position as a basically powerless and dependant minority to a more independent and powerful group within the American and world power structure.