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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
Samuel Reynier Tyson
Released
Samuel Reynier Tyson was a California Quaker, farmer and peace organizer associated with the Committee for Non...
U
Ulibarri
Identified only by his surname in the contemporary account, Ulibarri was a young Partido Liberal Mexicano-asso...
J
Joe Varela
Released
Joe Varela was imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison during the era of California's criminal-syndicalism pros...
J
Joe Vargo
Released
Joe Vargo was imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison during the era of California's criminal-syndicalism prose...
J
Joe Veale
Released
Joe Veale was a Richmond Panther detained on February 9, 1970 during newspaper and breakfast-program work. The...
J
John Vilarino
Released
John Vilarino was one of the workers arrested at the Los Angeles May Day demonstration of 1 May 1930 — on char...
I
Isaac Antonio Villegas Molina
Released
Isaac Antonio Villegas Molina is a Los Angeles day laborer and a named plaintiff in Vasquez-Perdomo v. Noem, t...
N
Natalio Villi
Released
Natalio Villi, a Ship Scalers Union member, was framed on a murder charge in the San Francisco Ship Scalers Un...
W
Wendell Wade
Released
Wendell Wade (also spelled Wendel Wade in Party publications) was a captain in the Black Panther Party, arrest...
L
Lawrence Walker
Released
Lawrence Walker was a Black former Air Force sergeant convicted of a double murder near Riverside, California...
G
George Wallace
Released
George Wallace was a union member of the Marine Firemen, Oilers and Watertenders, one of the defendants in the...
J
Jack Warnick
Released
Jack Warnick was a CAWIU organizer, one of the eighteen indicted at Sacramento in July 1934 for criminal syndi...
B
Bruce Washington
Bruce "Deacon" Washington was a 26-year-old member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland who was shot in the b...
D
David Alan Wayte
Released
Former Yale philosophy student from Pasadena who wrote letters to government officials publicly announcing his...
C
Constance Webb
Released
Constance Webb was arrested in the April 1974 police raids on Black Panther Party facilities and homes in Oakl...
J
John G. Weiler
Released
John G. Weiler was a member of the Communist Labor Party convicted under California's Criminal Syndicalism Act...
S
Sidney Weinbaum
Released
Sidney Weinbaum was a Caltech scientist convicted in 1950 in an early Cold War loyalty prosecution for making...
L
Lauren Weiner
Released
Lauren Weiner was an environmental activist prosecuted with Eric McDavid and Zachary Jenson in a Northern Cali...
W
Warren Wells
Released
Warren William Wells was a captain and sergeant-at-arms of the Black Panther Party who was wounded in the Apri...
W
Wesley Robert Wells
Released
Wesley Robert Wells was a Black California prisoner who became a national symbol of racist injustice after he...
S
Sid Welsh
Released
Mohave AIM organizer from the Indio, California area, arrested in 1977 on charges of possessing blasting caps...
G
Glen White
Black Marine, the only one of the 'Camp Pendleton 14' acquitted of the charges arising from Black Marines' 197...
H
H. C. White
Released
James “Angry Bird” White is a Native American activist and member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who became...
M
Matthew Whyte
Released
Matthew Whyte, age 18, was charged with attempted arson in 2001 alongside Peter Schnell in Capitola, Californi...
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