This was a 2007 campaign claim by Obama, then a senator, that was wildly off the mark. In reality, there are five times more black men enrolled in colleges and universities than young black men in federal and state prisons — and two and half times the total number incarcerated (including local jails). Even if you expanded the age group to include African American males up to 30 or 35, the college attendees would still outnumber the prisoners.st-whoppers/?utm_term=.edaecb2acb43