This study is about systemic containment of Black youth by authority structures within schools and law enforcement agents in racialized communities. Through the retrospective narratives of incarcerated Black students in a secure custody institution, vivid insights are provided into the construction of fear of Black youth and of the ways that arbitrary power and authority operate within the contested terrain of schools. Safe-schools policies of "zero tolerance" and the ongoing practice of "racial profiling" appear to converge in moving Black students through the "school-prison pipeline." (Contains 1 table and 5 endnotes.)