Skip to content
Learn More → State by State

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.

793Documented
19In custody
706Released
9Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in California

Where California’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 164 1970s 123 1930s 97 1960s 85 2000s 72 1950s 66

Documented cases

793 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

A
Alexander Jacob Castro
Released
Alexander Jacob Castro, 23, Riverside Historic Courthouse green-handprint defendant, July 30 2022. Felony redu...
H
Hugo Cederholm
Released
Hugo Cederholm, an IWW member from Los Angeles, received a four-year prison sentence, which he served in San Q...
C
Christian Damian Cerna-Camacho
Released
Christian Damian Cerna-Camacho, a United States citizen from Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, was 28 when federal...
W
Walter Chaffee
Released
Walter Chaffee was a California art instructor and participant in the CNVA Everyman voyage opposing nuclear te...
J
J. B. Childs
Released
J. B. Childs, from Los Angeles, received a four-year prison sentence, which he served in San Quentin from July...
W
William Christmas
San Quentin prisoner present in the Marin County courtroom in support of James McClain on Aug. 7, 1970; killed...
P
Patsy Ciambrelli
Released
Patsy Ciambrelli was one of the eight "Modesto Boys" — maritime workers framed on a dynamite charge by Standar...
J
Joe Clohessy
Released
Joe Clohessy was imprisoned at Folsom State Prison during the era of California's criminal-syndicalism prosecu...
J
John Cluchette
Released
John Cluchette was a Black prisoner at Soledad Prison in California and one of the three Soledad Brothers — al...
J
John Clutchette
The third of the Soledad Brothers, charged with co-defendants George Jackson and Fleeta Drumgo with the Januar...
N
Nic Clyde
Released
Nic Clyde was a Australian Greenpeace participant jailed in California following the 2001 Vandenberg anti-miss...
G
Gregory Coffey
Black Marine among the 'Camp Pendleton 14' charged with assault and conspiracy after Black Marines organized a...
C
Curtis Coggins
Released
Curtis Coggins was a conscientious objector from California imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for...
J
Jeremiah Dean Colcleasure
Released
Jeremiah Dean Colcleasure, age 24, was convicted of conspiracy and attempted arson in connection with the Dece...
F
Festus Coleman
Released
Festus Lewis Coleman was a young Black San Franciscan arrested in April 1941 and convicted on robbery and assa...
S
Sam Coleman
Released
Sam Coleman was a Communist Party official tried in San Francisco for sheltering Smith Act fugitives Robert Th...
J
John Colip
Released
John Colip was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners at the Presidio of Sa...
H
Harry Collentz
Released
Harry Collentz was a CAWIU organizer, one of the eighteen indicted at Sacramento in July 1934 for criminal syn...
E
Ed Condon
Released
Ed Condon was one of the railway shopmen convicted in the frame-up that grew out of the 1922 nationwide shop-c...
N
Nora Conklin
Released
Nora Conklin was a CAWIU organizer, one of the eighteen indicted at Sacramento in July 1934 for criminal syndi...
P
Philip Connelly
Released
Philip 'Slim' Connelly was a California labor journalist and former head of the Los Angeles CIO Council, and e...
F
Frank Conner
Released
Frank Conner was a ship's oiler convicted of conspiracy in the 1936-37 Point Lobos frame-up, which supporters...
T
Tom Connors
Released
Tom Connors, an IWW officer, served a prison sentence in San Quentin from June 2, 1925, to Februaiy 1927. Conn...
C
Clarence Copens
Black Marine co-defendant among the 'Camp Pendleton 14,' facing courts-martial over the 1976 confrontation wit...

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