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California
Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for California.
766Documented
19In custody
679Released
9Awaiting trial
Eras of repression in California
Where California’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1910s 164
1970s 120
1930s 97
1960s 80
1950s 66
2020s 61
Documented cases
766 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Todd Lewis Ashker
In Custody
Todd Lewis Ashker is a California prison organizer who helped build the movement against indefinite solitary c...
Audrey Carroll
In Custody
Audrey Illeene Carroll, of South Los Angeles, is one of four people charged in the alleged Turtle Island Liber...
Michael Zaharibu Dorrough
In Custody
Michael Zaharibu Dorrough, legally Michael Reed Dorrough, is a California prison writer and organizer against...
Edin Alex Enamorado
In Custody
Edin Alex Enamorado, of Upland, California, is a street-vendor-rights activist known for viral social-media vi...
Dante Gaffield
In Custody
Dante Gaffield, of South Los Angeles, is one of four people charged in the alleged Turtle Island Liberation Fr...
Casey Goonan
In Custody
Casey Robert Goonan, 34, of Oakland and Pleasant Hill CA, ignited six Molotov cocktails inside a UC Berkeley U...
Haki Malik Abdullah
In Custody
New Afrikan political prisoner held in California prisons including Folsom and Corcoran, CDC #C-56123. Listed...
Peter Karasev
In Custody
Peter Karasev, 38, US citizen of San Jose CA, was indicted October 19, 2023 for two willful destructions of Sa...
Tina Lai
In Custody
Tina Lai, of Glendale, California, is one of four people charged in the alleged Turtle Island Liberation Front...
Shamim Mafi
In Custody
Shamim Mafi is a 44-year-old Iranian national, a lawful permanent resident of the United States since 2016, wh...
Andrew Mickel
In Custody
Andrew Hampton McCrae Mickel shot and killed Red Bluff, California police officer David Mobilio at a gas stati...
Zachary Page
In Custody
Zachary Aaron Page, of Torrance, California, is one of four people charged in the alleged Turtle Island Libera...
Jennifer Rose
In Custody
Jennifer Amelia Rose — formerly known as Jennifer Gann, and called "Babygirl" by supporters — is a transgender...
Daniel Andreas San Diego
In Custody
Daniel Andreas San Diego is a straight-edge vegan animal-liberation activist from the San Francisco Bay Area w...
Abdul Olugbala Shakur
In Custody
Abdul Olugbala Shakur, born Stanley Stocker-Worsham, is a New Afrikan political prisoner held in the Californi...
Mike Sun
In Custody
Chino Hills, California political operative and operator of the Chinese-language outlet U.S. News Center, pros...
Erich Louis Yach
In Custody
Erich Louis Yach, 37, gender non-conforming, was indicted June 7, 2022 for the January 9, 2021 SD-Antifa-10 at...
Stew Albert
Released
Stew Albert was an early member of the Yippies (Youth International Party) and a key figure in the 1960s New L...
Eugene Allen
Released
One of the 'San Quentin Two,' convicted with Eugene 'Ernest' Graham of killing a guard at the Deuel Vocational...
Stephanie Amesquita
Released
Stephanie Amesquita, 33, Justice 8 defendant; September 2023 Victorville street-vendor protest. 12 months Cali...
Elmer Anderson
Released
Elmer Anderson, from Sacramento, California, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Sacramento and sentenced t...
John D. Apel
Released
John D. Apel is a longtime Catholic Worker Movement activist who co-founded a Catholic Worker house in Guadalu...
Jacob Appelbaum
In Exile
Jacob Appelbaum (also known as “ioerror”) is an American computer security researcher, hacker, privacy activis...
Bettina Aptheker
Released
Bettina Aptheker is an American political activist, feminist scholar, and longtime professor of feminist studi...
Institutions in California
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in California that appear in the census’s case files.
San Quentin State PrisonSan Quentin, California
150 cases
Federal Bureau of Prisons
59 cases
San Quentin Rehabilitation CenterSan Quentin, California
23 cases
Presidio StockadeSan Francisco, California
22 cases
Los Angeles County JailLos Angeles, California
21 cases
Metropolitan Detention Center, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
14 cases
San Francisco County JailSan Francisco, California
13 cases
Alameda County JailOakland, California
10 cases