Blind comparison of imprisonment rates is misleading when you ignore confounding variables like income, geographic distribution, parental age and marital status.
Step 2. Pass them through to adult courts twice as often as white teens.
Step 3. Keep them in prisons 60% longer for the same crimes.
Step 4. Use big words like "confounding variables" to pretend that it's complicated.
Sources:
http://www.iamforkids.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Promise...
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/black-americans-given...