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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.

L
Lintonia Sheppard
Released
Lintonia Sheppard was responsible for health care for more than one hundred children at the Black Panther Part...
F
Frank Sherman
Released
Frank Sherman was from Woodland. Frank Sherman served a prison sentence in San Quentin from December 21, 1921,...
G
Gerald Sherman
Released
Gerald Sherman was arrested at the edge of a May Day meeting in Compton, California, in 1934 after police fail...
S
Shin Shibata
Shin Shibata is individually listed in the INS civilian custody roster as confined at San Pedro Detention Stat...
G
Gloria Shields
Released
Gloria Shields was individually named among San Diego Black Panthers arrested July 16, 1969 on the way to a br...
S
Seiei Shima
Seiei Shima was an Okinawan gardener and labor activist. Yushi Yamazaki's 2020 study, printed p. 102 and notes...
J
J. H. Shintz
Released
J. H. Shintz was listed in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions...
A
Abraham Shocker
Abraham Shocker was an IWW member convicted of violating the California criminal syndicalism law on December 9...
J
John Shoemaker
John Shoemaker was a San Francisco longshore strike-committee member whom police took to the station on a riot...
F
Frank Shuford
Released
Frank Norris Shuford was a 22-year-old Black community organizer in Santa Ana, California. Prosecutors charged...
R
Rachel Siemons
Rachel Siemons, a physician and observer of immigration operations, was taken into custody during a September...
H
Harry Simon
Harry Simon was one of the named defendants arrested in the September14, 1931 San Francisco City Hall unemploy...
S
Simonov
Simonov is named in the July 16 Western Worker’s July 4 San Diego dispatch among arrested audience members aft...
S
Sims
Sims was identified by surname only among twenty-two people arrested for picketing the Adohr Dairy during the...
B
Buchan Singh
Released
Buchan Singh was named among the political prisoners jailed in Los Angeles in 1932 who sent revolutionary gree...
F
Francis Sirocho
Released
Francis Sirocho was a U.S. Army prisoner and one of the Presidio 27. On October 14, 1968, twenty-seven prisone...
W
Walt Skinner
Released
Walt Skinner was a Vietnam-era war objector imprisoned at Lompoc. Friends Journal later reported his release a...
M
Marilyn Skyhorse
Released
Marilyn Skyhorse was the wife of Paul Skyhorse, the American Indian Movement activist held nearly four years a...
R
Russell Smart
Russell Smart, nineteen, of Belvedere Gardens, was prosecuted during the Los Angeles-area agricultural strike....
C
C. J. Smith
Released
C. J. Smith was an IWW member from Los Angeles. C. J. Smith received a four-year prison sentence, which he ser...
C
Cornelius Smith
Released
Cornelius Smith was one of four Black Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees arrested after a racist attack at...
E
Edward J. Smith
Edward was a Baltimore agent for this newspaper and maritime unionist reported arrested several times during t...
M
Marvin Smith
Released
Marvin Smith was a California prisoner, transferred from Soledad to San Quentin, who became a figure in the pr...
R
Robert Smith
Released
Robert Smith was arrested at Beale Air Force Base for protesting unmanned aerial vehicle operations.

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