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.
M
Manuel Reyes
Released
Mexican-American youth and one of twelve defendants convicted in the January 1943 Sleepy Lagoon murder trial a...
R
Ron Ridenour
Released
Ron Ridenour was a Los Angeles Free Press journalist and supporter of striking Chicana garment workers. He was...
B
Bryan Rivera
Released
Bryan Rivera was one of the eleven defendants in the San Diego County District Attorney's prosecution of anti-...
R
Robert Robbins
Released
Robert Robbins, a San Francisco picture framer, participated in the CNVA Everyman anti-nuclear voyage. He was...
J
J.R. Robertson
Released
J.R. Robertson was an officer of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) convicted of perjury a...
G
George Robinson
Released
George Robinson was a member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland. In December 1974 he was among the Party me...
J
J. C. Robinson
Released
J. C. Robinson was a Los Angeles member of the Industrial Workers of the World, prosecuted under California's...
N
Nelson Rodriguez
Released
Nelson Rodriguez was one of Los Siete de la Raza, a group of young Latino men from the Mission District of San...
V
Victor Rodriguez
Released
Victor Rodriguez was one of the five anti-fascist Spanish sailors who deserted a Franco warship and claimed po...
H
Hugh Nanton Romney Jr.
Released
Counterculture icon and clown-activist. Arrested in the September 1981 Diablo Canyon blockade and held with th...
A
Annette Roper
Released
Annette Roper was arrested in the April 1974 police raids on Black Panther Party facilities and homes in Oakla...
C
Cameron Rose
Released
Cameron Rose was arrested about a month after a December 2011 confrontation at an Occupy Oakland teepee vigil...
R
Rosenbaum
Released
Rosenbaum was a Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union organizer convicted in a Riverside County,...
B
Bernard Rosenfeld
Released
Bernard Rosenfeld was arrested at Los Angeles, California in May 1932 on an anti-war meeting.
C
Carl Ross
Released
Carl Ross was a Communist arrested in August 1953 and tried in San Francisco for sheltering Smith Act fugitive...
M
Michael Dale Rossman
Released
Michael Rossman was a Berkeley Free Speech Movement organizer, writer and later collector of political posters...
I
Ida Rothstein
Released
Ida Rothstein was a foreign-born radical in San Francisco targeted for deportation during the McCarthy era. He...
R
Randy Rowland
Released
Randy Rowland was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners who staged a sit-d...
S
Stephen Rowland
Released
Stephen Rowland, then 21 and from St. Louis, was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stocka...
W
Walter Rozier
Released
Walter Rozier was a member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland who, The Black Panther reported (November 2,...
M
Morris Rubin
Released
Morris Rubin was a skilled upholsterer and a charter member of the Furniture Workers Union in Los Angeles who...
A
Anthony Russo
Released
Anthony Russo was a former RAND Corporation analyst who helped Daniel Ellsberg photocopy the Pentagon Papers,...
W
W. Rutherford
Released
W. Rutherford was imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison in the mid-1920s, during the era of California's crim...
S
S. Sakiyama
Released
S. Sakiyama was named among the political prisoners jailed in Los Angeles in 1932 who sent revolutionary greet...
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