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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.
G
George E. Shibley
Released
George E. Shibley was a California labor and civil-liberties attorney who, after a jury acquitted him of conte...
J
J. H. Shintz
Released
J. H. Shintz appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions an...
A
Abraham Shocker
Released
Abraham Shocker was an IWW member convicted of violating the California criminal syndicalism law on December 9...
F
Frank Shuford
22-year-old Black community activist in Santa Ana convicted in a 1972 police frame-up of shooting two market c...
H
Henry Silva
Released
Henry Silva was one of the eight Modesto maritime workers framed on a dynamite charge after the 1935 tanker st...
L
Lillian Silverman
Released
Lillian Silverman was listed on the Labor Defender's class-war prisoner honor roll as serving 6 months in the...
B
Buchan Singh
Released
Buchan Singh was named among the political prisoners jailed in Los Angeles in 1932 who sent revolutionary gree...
M
Marilyn Skyhorse
Released
Marilyn Skyhorse was the wife of Paul Skyhorse, the American Indian Movement activist held nearly four years a...
B
Bernard Smith
Bernard Smith received a jail sentence after a Los Angeles Panther-related arrest.
C
C. J. Smith
Released
C. J. Smith, an IWW member from Los Angeles, received a four-year prison sentence, which he served in San Quen...
C
Cornelius Smith
Released
Cornelius Smith was one of four Black Civilian Conservation Corps youths of the Cohasset camp near Chico, Cali...
M
Marvin Smith
Released
Marvin Smith was a California prisoner, transferred from Soledad to San Quentin, who became a figure in the pr...
S
Sara Jane Olson
Released
Kathleen Ann Soliah, who lived under the name Sara Jane Olson for more than two decades, was a member of the S...
S
Steven Soliah
Released
House painter and brother of Kathleen Soliah, a member of the SLA's second formation and a roommate of Michael...
N
Nesrey Sood
Released
Nesrey Sood, then 26 and from Oakland, California, was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the...
L
Loretta Stack
Released
Loretta Starvus Stack was among the California Communist Party leaders indicted under the Smith Act in 1951 an...
H
Harold Stallings
Released
Harold Stallings was an Everyman I crew member jailed after the CNVA voyage opposing Pacific nuclear weapons t...
R
Ruell Stanfield
Released
Ruell Stanfield was one of the eight Modesto maritime workers framed on a dynamite charge after the 1935 tanke...
N
Nick Steelik
Released
Nick Steelik, an IWW organizer from Los Angeles, was arrested on September 19, 1919, for ''willfully" advocati...
S
Sidney Stein
Released
Sidney Stein was a Smith Act fugitive who was being harbored and who was under Smith Act indictment during the...
W
William Stein
Released
William Stein, an IWW member from Los Angeles, received a one- to fourteen-year prison sentence, which he serv...
H
Harry Steinberg
Released
Harry Steinberg was one of the fifteen California Communist Party leaders arrested in Los Angeles in July 1951...
C
C. C. Stemler
Released
C. C. Stemler appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions a...
T
Tom Stevens
White Panther Party member sentenced to 5½ years-to-life for assault with a deadly weapon after firing warning...
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