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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.
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.
S
Salas
Released
Salas was a Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union organizer convicted in a Riverside County, Cali...
L
Larry Sales
Released
Larry Sales, then 21 and from Modesto, California, was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the...
R
Rodolfo Sanchez
Released
Rodolfo Sanchez was a member of La Casa de Carnalismo, a Chicano community organization in East Los Angeles th...
J
John Sanders
Released
John Sanders was a class-war prisoner held in the Lincoln Heights jail in Los Angeles in 1935–36 for unemploye...
E
Esther Sazer
Released
Esther Sazer was a Russian-born member of the Independent Office Workers in Los Angeles targeted for deportati...
M
Martha Scarborough
Released
Martha Scarborough was a Los Angeles Catholic Worker who participated in the Ash Wednesday March 5, 2003 block...
G
Gus Schader
Released
Gus Schader appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions and...
B
Ben Schapiro
Released
Ben Schapiro was one of six young workers, one of the six young demonstrators, who leapt the railing at the cl...
C
Carl Schilter
Released
Carl Schilter, from Sacramento, California, began serving a two and a half year prison sentence on June 30, 19...
H
Henry Schmidt
Released
Henry Schmidt was an officer of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) convicted of perjury as...
J
Jake J. Schmidt
Released
Jake J. Schmidt was a Mennonite Brethren conscientious objector from California imprisoned during World War I....
E
Emma Schneiderman
Released
Emma Schneiderman was one of the staff of the communist children's summer camp at Yucaipa, California convicte...
H
Harry Schneiderman
Released
Harry Schneiderman was listed on the Labor Defender's class-war prisoner honor roll as serving 6 months in the...
W
William V. Schneiderman
Released
Romanovo, Russian Empire-born; California CPUSA State Secretary 1938-57. Subject of earlier Schneiderman v. US...
P
Peter Schnell
Released
Peter Schnell, age 21, was charged with attempted arson in 2001 after being found behind Capitola City Hall wi...
C
Charles G. Schulze
Released
Charles G. Schulze, from San Diego, California, served in McNeil Island Penitentiary from September 27, 1918,...
J
Julian Schuman
Released
Julian Schuman was a U.S. correspondent and staff writer for the China Monthly Review — the last American repo...
C
Charles Scott
Released
New Afrikan political prisoner held at San Quentin State Prison in California, listed as a North American poli...
J
John L. Scott
Released
John L. Scott was a member of the Black Panther Party and the eighth person indicted over the April 6, 1968 We...
D
Danny Seals
Released
Danny Seals, then 21 and from Auburn, California, was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the s...
M
Martin Shapiro
Released
Martin Shapiro was one of the workers arrested at the Los Angeles May Day demonstration of 1 May 1930 — on cha...
T
Thomas Sharp
Released
Thomas Sharp was arrested without cause and beaten in jail, his leg broken in the San Francisco general-strike...
B
Buddy Shaw
Released
Buddy Shaw was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners at the Presidio of Sa...
L
Lintonia Sheppard
Released
Lintonia Sheppard was responsible for the health care of the more than one hundred children at the Black Panth...
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