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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.

1,533Documented
32In custody
958Released
13Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in California

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

1930s 361 1970s 206 1960s 205 1910s 176 2020s 125 1980s 90

Documented cases

1,533 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Mike Rossman
Released
Michael Rossman was a Berkeley Free Speech Movement organizer, writer and later collector of political posters...
Ida Rothstein
Released
Ida Rothstein was a Russian-born garment worker, union organizer, Communist Party activist, and secretary of t...
Randy Rowland
Released
Randy Rowland, identified as Stephen Rowland in the official court-martial record, was a U.S. Army medic and o...
Danny Roxas
Released
Danny Roxas was a farm worker activist and IWW officer. Danny Roxas received a two- to twenty-eight-year priso...
Irving David Rubin
Released
Irving David Rubin, JDL Chairman and former Air Force serviceman, was indicted December 12, 2001 with Earl Kru...
Rebecca Rubin
Released
Rebecca Rubin is an environmentalist affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front. She received a 5-year sentenc...
Tony Russo
Released
Anthony Russo was a former RAND Corporation analyst who helped Daniel Ellsberg photocopy the Pentagon Papers,...
Domenick Sallitto
Released
Domenick Sallitto was an Italian-born anarchist in the San Francisco Bay Area who chaired anarchist meetings a...
Ramon L. Sanchez
Released
Ramon L. Sanchez was a Spanish-born laborer and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organizer arrested in Sa...
Rodolfo Sanchez
Released
Rodolfo “Rudy” Sanchez was a member of La Casa de Carnalismo, an East Los Angeles organization that opposed he...
Vincent Santilli
Released
Vincent Santilli was a miner from Sacramento, California. Vincent Santilli was convicted at the mass IWW trial...
Ben Sasway
Released
Benjamin H. Sasway was a California college student who publicly refused to register with the Selective Servic...
Earl Satcher
Earl Satcher was a Black Panther prisoner at Soledad. Contemporary reporting individually places him in the ex...
Mario Savio
Released
Mario Savio was the son of Sicilian immigrants and became the leading orator of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech...
Esther Sazer
Released
Esther Sazer was a Russian-born Los Angeles office worker and member of the Independent Office Workers targete...
Henry Schmidt
Released
Henry Schmidt was an officer of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union prosecuted with Harry Bridges...
Matthew Schmidt
Released
Matthew Schmidt was an anarchist and union ironworker connected to the McNamara brothers' bombing of the Los A...
Emma Schneiderman
Released
Emma Schneiderman was one of the staff of the communist children's summer camp at Yucaipa, California convicte...
William Schneiderman
Released
William Schneiderman was the secretary of the California Communist Party and, after the 1951 arrests, its acti...
Hermann M. Schwinn
Released
Hermann M. Schwinn was a West Coast leader of the German American Bund. He organized and spoke at Bund events...
Adrian Scott
Released
Adrian Scott, the producer of the acclaimed anti-antisemitism film noir “Crossfire” (1947), which was in theat...
Artie Seale
Released
Artie Seale was a Black Panther organizer and the first wife of party co-founder Bobby Seale. Police arrested...
Bobby Seale
Released
Bobby Seale was the co-founder, with Huey P. Newton, of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland in...
Tamura R. Seiji
Released
Tamura R. Seiji was one of 22 Greenpeace activists federally charged after the September 12, 2019 blockade of...

Institutions in California

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in California that appear in the census’s case files.

San Quentin State PrisonSan Quentin, California
171 cases
Federal Bureau of Prisons
60 cases
Sharp Park Detention CampSharp Park, California
33 cases
Presidio StockadeSan Francisco, California
28 cases
Los Angeles County JailLos Angeles, California
26 cases
Folsom State PrisonFolsom, California
22 cases
San Quentin Rehabilitation CenterSan Quentin, California
16 cases
Metropolitan Detention Center, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
15 cases